Pakistan Web Retailer Yayvo Seeks Investors in Alibaba Battle
Yayvo, Pakistan’s second-largest online retailer, is planning to bring in new investors amid competition from Alibaba Group.
(Bloomberg) -- Yayvo, Pakistan’s second-largest online retailer, is planning to bring in new investors amid competition from Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.
The e-commerce company has appointed advisers to help with the fundraising, Yayvo’s head, Adam Dawood, said in an interview in Karachi last week. Yayvo aims to start meeting with potential investors in the Middle East and China next month, according to Dawood.
“We want to bring in experts who can help us grow faster and bring in more money to the point that we can grow much, much faster,” he said. “We are actually looking for the right investors who can come in, be very strategic investors, who can help out with our future plan.”
Yayvo’s valuation before the fundraising is estimated at around $100 million, people with knowledge of the matter said, asking not to be identified because the information is private. Dawood declined to comment on the company’s valuation.
Pakistan’s rising middle class and young population have turned it into one of the world’s fastest-growing retail markets. Alibaba, backed by Chinese billionaire Jack Ma, last year bought Yayvo’s larger domestic rival Daraz, which is also active is Bangladesh, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Nepal.
Yayvo, founded in 2014, sells more than 150,000 products from detergent to mobile phones and televisions on its website. Its current shareholders also own Pakistan’s largest logistics company TCS, Yayvo’s website shows. TCS has a network of more than 950 outlets that make about 500,000 deliveries a day.
To contact the reporters on this story: Vinicy Chan in Hong Kong at vchan91@bloomberg.net;Faseeh Mangi in Karachi at fmangi@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Ben Scent at bscent@bloomberg.net, ;Arijit Ghosh at aghosh@bloomberg.net, Timothy Sifert
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