Lazada receives approximately US$250 million of funding from Tesco, Access Industries, Kinnevik and Verlinvest

Close cooperation between multichannel retail giant and leading online general merchandise pure player set to transform the Southeast Asian retail ecosystem

Singapore, 9/12/2013 –  Lazada,  Southeast Asia’s largest online shopping mall, raises a large funding round from a group of investors including  Tesco PLC,  Access Industries,  Investment AB Kinnevik and Verlinvest,  which adds approximately US$250 million of cash to Lazada’s balance sheet.

This marks the first investment by multichannel retailer Tesco into a pure online player in the region and is the starting point of close cooperation between the parties. Synergies of this partnership will span across customer analytics, private label development and supply chain management.

Maximilian Bittner, CEO of Lazada Group, said: “We are delighted to welcome Tesco and Access to join our investor group through this funding round. That the investment is also joined by Kinnevik and Verlinvest – which know our business and operations extremely well – demonstrates that we are making great progress in building a large and sustainable company in Southeast Asia. We are excited to continue this journey together with our investors.”

“Lazada’s management team has put the company on a path to become the premier online shopping destination in Southeast Asia. We are pleased to be part of this dynamic success story,” said Jörg Mohaupt from Access Industries, in a statement.

“Strategic cooperation between long-term financial investors and industry partners can add significant growth momentum and enhanced profitability to e-commerce businesses. We welcome Tesco’s investment in Lazada and look forward to working with them in supporting Maximilian and his team,” said Mia Brunell Livfors, CEO of Kinnevik.

Robin Terrell, Group Multichannel Director of Tesco, said: “This investment in South East Asia’s largest e-commerce retailer continues our strategy of developing leading multichannel businesses in core growth markets. Lazada is an exciting, pioneering business which has developed a market-leading offer in each of its five markets in just 18 months. As South East Asia’s 600 million consumers begin to use smartphone technology to access retailers online, Lazada has established a strong position from which to grow."

Lazada is a pioneer in Southeast Asian e-commerce with around 1,500 employees across five Southeast Asian countries. Since launch Lazada has become the leading online general merchandiser across the region. As key pillars of Lazada’s long-term strategy, the company has opened up its platform with great success to third party merchants to increase assortment and allowing both large and small suppliers take advantage of Lazada’s traffic volumes, continued building its category mix by expanding into fashion, and developed an affiliate program that will help the region’s broader web community to flourish by providing web portal and blog owners an opportunity to monetize their website.

As another key cornerstone of the Group’s strategy, Lazada also launched Lamido in Indonesia and Vietnam, to tap into the large informal e-commerce market of C2C transactions which includes thousands of shops on social networks such as Facebook.