Kuala Lumpur, 31st March, 2015 – Malaysia-based mobile marketplace Duriana just disclosed that it has secured a US$2.5 million Series A funding. Organized by its founding investor, Alps Ventures Pte. Ltd., the round was led by BEENOS Asia Pte. Ltd., the investment subsidiary of Japanese e-commerce giant formerly known as netprice.com. The round saw participation from existing investors and brings the total funding to date to approximately US$ 3.5 million.
Launched in November 2013, the Duriana team has worked relentlessly to crack liquidity, improve the product and has gone from a few thousand listings in the first couple months to over 600,000 listings today. The app now sees fresh listings every minute, several thousand transactions a week and has gained a leadership position in its field in Malaysia and the Philippines. The team is proud of the user adoption the app sees: on average a user lists around 5 items on their profile, time spent per user is increasing week on week – now topping over an hour a month – and an increasing number of users are making use of the recently introduced “Duriana Safe Payments” escrow system to safely pay directly in the app. No more in person meet ups required!
Duriana CEO and Co-founder, Amanda Ernst is happy with the results so far and adds “We have made a lot of advancements on all fronts: product, HR, scaling liquidity, increasing adopting and addiction as well as making the in-app shopping safer and more convenient with the introduction of escrow payments […] Funding has already been put to use to make the buying and selling process even simpler by solving issues such as product discovery, integration of additional payment and logistics options as well as scaling market presence.”
Teru Sato, founder of BEENOS, explains the reason behind his company’s investment: “We are strong believers in marketplace models and incubated a very similar model in Japan with great success. When meeting the Duriana team
we were convinced by its strength and ability to execute on its vision.”
About Duriana
Duriana is Malaysia and Philippines’ largest peer to peer, mobile-first marketplace that lets you buy and sell new & preloved stuff right from your smartphone. Duriana hopes to change the way people buy and sell by providing an app that is simple and fun to use that also fits into your lifestyle.
The app is available for download on iOS and Android devices at www.duriana.com.
