Zilingo

Last updated
Zilingo
Company typePrivate
IndustryInternet Services / Online Fashion Marketplace Services / eCommerce/ Business to Business/ Fashion Sourcing
Founded2015;10 years ago (2015)
Founder
Headquarters
Singapore
Key people
Dhruv Kapoor, (Chief Technology Officer); Jim Perry, (Chief Financial Officer); Aadi Vaidya, (Chief Operating Officer); Marita Abraham, (Chief Marketing Officer) Niketh Sabbineni (Vice President) Shruti Koshy (Vice President) Peerapool Vayakornvichit (Vice President) Shushant Mantry (Vice President)
Parent Zilingo Pte Ltd
Subsidiaries Zilingo Business
Website http://www.zilingotrade.com/

Zilingo was an ecommerce fashion platform founded in 2015 by Ankiti Bose and Dhruv Kapoor, with operations spanning India, Singapore, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Thailand, Philippines, Australia and the United States. [1] [2] The company once valued at close to one billion dollars [3] ceased operations in 2022 amidst scandal and mismanagement. [4] It sold its tech assets to Swiss firm Buyogo in January 2023. [5] It entered liquidation in February 2023 [6] [7] with sources indicating there was nothing left to be recovered. [3] Lawsuits related to the implosion of the business remain ongoing. [8]

Contents

History

Founding and growth

Zilingo, a play on the word "zillion", was established in 2015 by two founders of Indian origin, Ankiti Bose [9] and Dhruv Kapoor. [10] The idea came from when Bose was on holiday in Bangkok and noticed that many of the small and medium-sized shops had no online presence. [11] [12]

It began with seed funding from Sequoia India [13] and raised an additional $8 million in a Series A funding round in September 2016. [14] It raised an additional $18 million in 2017 in a Series B round [13] and $54 million in a Series C round in 2018. [15]

The company started off as a B2C long-tail fashion marketplace leveraging Southeast Asia's growing internet connectivity to bring small merchants from the street markets of Bangkok and Jakarta into the e-commerce fold. [16]

Zilingo later expanded focus towards B2B opportunities. [16] [17] This included products designed to help merchants and manufacturers manage their e-commerce business including inventory management, sales tracking, financing, sourcing procurement, and a ‘style hunter’ for identifying upcoming fashion trends. [16]

Expansion efforts led the company to be valued at nearly one billion dollars by 2019. [18] Their fashion platform took a cut whenever it was used to broker a deal or make a sale, [19] as part of the company vision of making the fashion supply chain a levelled playing field. [20]

In September 2017, Zilingo was shipping to eight countries and had added 5,000 new merchants in the previous twelve months. [13] By September 2019 the company was generating 80% of its revenue from B2B operations. [21]

In 2019, the company raised $226 million in a Series D round from existing investors Sequoia India, Burda Capital, Sofina with Singapore's sovereign fund Temasek Holdings joining the tech-platform's capital table. [22] The latest round took the tech-platform to US$308 million from investors, making it one of Southeast Asia's highest capitalised startups. [23]

The company closed its US and Australia offices in 2020, to focus on business in Asia. [24] In July 2020, a second round of terminations was carried out in Thailand, India, and Indonesia offices, with an estimated additional 12% of employees being laid off globally. CFO James Perry resigned following the rounds of downsizing. [25]

Dismissal of CEO

On March 30 whistleblowers approached the Zilingo board reporting a series of unexplained payments approved by Ankiti Bose to companies with no connection to Zilingo operations. [3] On 31 March 2022, Bose was suspended as CEO. [26] [27] On 20 May 2022 Bose was fired from Zilingo. [28]

Management buyout

On 20 June 2022, the cofounders of Zilingo, Dhruv Kapoor and Ankiti Bose, sent a proposal to the board for a management buyout (MBO), [29] making a last ditch effort to buy the embattled fashion platform. [30] [31]

Lawsuits

In April 2024 Bose filed a $100 million dollar defamation lawsuit against investor Mahesh Murthy for an article he wrote in Outlook Business magazine. [32] She also filed a criminal complaint against co-founder Dhruv Kapoor and ex-COO Aadi Vaidya. [33] [34] In May one of Zilingo's primary investor citing "significant financial regularities" indicated an intent to sue Bose, [35] [36] while Bose filed a further defamation lawsuit against Kapoor and Vaidya. [37]

Technology and commerce

Zilingo started off as a mobile-first eCommerce marketplace and expanded into a B2B tech-platform. Their seller management platform offered small retailers and longtail brands online distribution, inventory management tools and APIs for logistics. [38]

Their seller management tool became profitable by 2018, offering financial services, a “style hunter", product sourcing, and content / photography services. Zilingo's customer base expanded to include fashion sellers, SMEs, Southeast Asian brands and B2B businesses. [39]

Zilingo's tech assets were sold to Swiss firm Butogo in January 2023.

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References

  1. ↑ "Riding A Unicorn- Business News". www.businesstoday.in. 16 September 2019. Retrieved 2019-10-01.
  2. ↑ Watson, Rana Wehbe. "Aiming For Zillions: Zilingo Finds A Niche In Asia's Crowded E-Commerce Market". Forbes.
  3. 1 2 3 Subramaniam, Nikhil (2023-04-21). "Zilingo's Collapse: Inside Ankiti Bose's Multimillion-Dollar Implosion". Inc42 Media. Retrieved 2025-01-07.
  4. ↑ "Why did Zilingo fail? How Scandal and Mismanagement KILLED Zilingo!". buildd. Retrieved 2025-01-07.
  5. ↑ Kashyap, Hemant (2023-01-24). "Zilingo Sells nCinga, Tech Assets To Swiss Ecommerce Enabler Buyogo AG". Inc42 Media. Retrieved 2025-01-07.
  6. ↑ "Singapore Business Directory". Singapore Business Directory. Retrieved 2025-01-07.
  7. ↑ "Singapore's Zilingo to Liquidate After Crisis at Fashion Startup". Bloomberg News . 20 January 2023. Retrieved 20 January 2023.
  8. ↑ "Ankiti Bose, ex-Zilingo CEO, embarks on legal battle with former partners: A closer look at her journey". Financialexpress. 2024-05-03. Retrieved 2025-01-07.
  9. ↑ "Real Truth Behind Zilingo in Hindi- अंकिति बोस-Zilingo का पर्दाफाश".
  10. ↑ Woo, Alyssa (17 August 2017). "Selling online gets easy". Straits Times. Retrieved 19 July 2018.
  11. ↑ Chiang, Tay Suan (3 June 2017). "Ankiti Bose". Business Times. Retrieved 19 July 2018.
  12. ↑ Morente, Tricia V. (13 September 2017). "Zilingo: The Singapore-Based e-Merchant of Small Things is Getting Bigger". Inc. Southeast Asia. Retrieved 19 July 2018.
  13. 1 2 3 Russell, Jon (12 September 2017). "Zilingo raises $18M for its fashion ecommerce service in Southeast Asia". Tech Crunch. Retrieved 19 July 2018.
  14. ↑ Russell, Jon (5 September 2016). "Zilingo lands $8M for its marketplace for fashion sellers in Southeast Asia". Tech Crunch. Retrieved 19 July 2018.
  15. ↑ Russell, Jon (4 April 2018). "Southeast Asia fashion startup Zilingo continues its meteoric rise with $54M Series C". Tech Crunch. Retrieved 19 July 2018.
  16. 1 2 3 "E-commerce startup Zilingo raises $226M to digitize Asia's fashion supply chain". 12 February 2019.
  17. ↑ "One thing that's become very clear to us is there's a lot of value [in] making the supply chain efficient, instead of giving out discounts and doing crazy marketing". 13 February 2019.
  18. ↑ "How a 27-Year-Old CEO Built a Near $1 Billion Fashion Startup". 2019-07-21. Retrieved 2019-07-22.
  19. ↑ "Tech in Asia - Connecting Asia's startup ecosystem". www.techinasia.com. Retrieved 2019-10-01.
  20. ↑ "At Zilingo, we keep the merchant at the centre of everything. We have seen the pain points of some of these enterprises first-hand — not being able to improve their margins or grow any further due to lack of technology access and capital. Meanwhile, big international brands continue to grow aggressively". vulcanpost.com. 11 March 2019.
  21. ↑ "Zilingo's CEO on Supply Chain, U.S. Expansion, Sustainability". Bloomberg.com. 2019-09-20. Retrieved 2019-10-01.
  22. ↑ "E-commerce startup Zilingo raises $226M to digitize Asia's fashion supply chain". TechCrunch. 12 February 2019. Retrieved 2019-07-22.
  23. ↑ "E-commerce startup Zilingo raises $226M to digitize Asia's fashion supply chain". TechCrunch. 12 February 2019. Retrieved 2019-10-01.
  24. ↑ "Axed Zilingo workers upset by how layoffs were handled". The Business Times. 2020-04-21. Retrieved 2020-04-28.
  25. ↑ "Zilingo CFO James Perry resigns to return to Citigroup for tech deals". www.businesstimes.com.sg. October 27, 2020 [September 28, 2020].
  26. ↑ "Zilingo finally fires CEO Ankiti Bose after 51-day suspension—for 'insubordination'". Fortune . Retrieved 8 June 2022.
  27. ↑ "Temasek-backed Zilingo suspends CEO amid accounting probe - Bloomberg News". Nasdaq . Retrieved 12 April 2022.
  28. ↑ "Zilingo Fires CEO as Clash Over Embattled Startup Escalates". Bloomberg News. 20 May 2022. Retrieved 20 May 2022.
  29. ↑ Burgos, Jonathan. "Zilingo Cofounders Propose To Buyout Financially Troubled Startup". Forbes. Retrieved 2022-06-21.
  30. ↑ "Zilingo Founders Make Surprise Buyout Offer for Startup". Bloomberg.com. 2022-06-19. Retrieved 2025-01-07.
  31. ↑ Burgos, Jonathan. "Zilingo Cofounders Propose To Buyout Financially Troubled Startup". Forbes. Retrieved 2025-01-07.
  32. ↑ Livemint (2023-04-24). "Investor sued by Zilingo founder for highlighting misuse of money by CEO Ankiti". mint. Archived from the original on 2023-05-26. Retrieved 2025-01-07.
  33. ↑ "Zilingo ex-CEO Ankiti Bose files FIR against co-founder: 'Threatened, deceived me, attributed errors'". Hindustan Times. 24 Apr 2024.
  34. ↑ "Zilingo's Ankiti Bose files FIR against cofounder Dhruv Kapoor". The Economic Times. 2024-04-24. ISSN   0013-0389 . Retrieved 2025-01-07.
  35. ↑ "Trouble for Ankiti Bose as Zilingo investors indicate legal action against the ousted CEO". International Finance. 2023-05-01. Retrieved 2025-01-07.
  36. ↑ "Zilingo investors mulls legal action against ex-CEO Ankiti Bose". Financialexpress. 2023-04-27. Retrieved 2025-01-07.
  37. ↑ "Zilingo's Ex-CEO Ankiti Bose files fresh lawsuit against Dhruv Kapoor, Aadi Vaidya for alleged defamation". Business Today. 2024-05-03. Retrieved 2025-01-07.
  38. ↑ "Zilingo lands $8M for its marketplace for fashion sellers in Southeast Asia". TechCrunch. 6 September 2016. Retrieved 2019-10-09.
  39. ↑ "Southeast Asia fashion startup Zilingo continues its meteoric rise with $54M Series C". TechCrunch. 4 April 2018. Retrieved 2019-10-09.
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