Elenas, a Colombia-based social commerce platform, raised $20 million in Series B funding after acquiring $6 million in Series A, TechCrunch reported. This followed the successful seed funding in 2020, which gave the company $2 million.
This brings the total amount of money earned to far more than $28 million.
The New Investment
CEO Zach Oschin did not provide specifics, yet he did suggest that Elenas' valuation had increased from the previous round. The company's income has also increased by more than five times between the rounds.
Jointly funding this new venture are DILA Capital, FJ Labs, Endeavor Catalyst, the IDB Lab of the Inter-American Development Bank, Broadhaven Ventures, Mercado Libre, Grupo Bolivar, and Leo Capital.
According to Alejandro Diez Barroso, the managing partner at DILA Capital, Elenas is redefining the business by providing millions of people across the region the ability to sell thousands of products through its digital catalog. "We are convinced that we are backing the right team in the right market and at the right time."
Since Mexico has a population three times that of Colombia, Oschin predicted it would become the firm's largest market within the following year. The company has already achieved a "profitable and sustainable growth model" in Mexico.
Elenas said it took two and a half years in Colombia to attain the same level of growth as it did in Mexico since launching there in 2021, meaning that Mexico now accounts for more than a third of its revenue.
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Elenas and its Benefits to Lat-Am Women
Elenas claims 11 million Latin-American women engage in direct sales via catalogs and door-to-door tactics.
Zach Oschin founded the company in 2018 to digitize the traditional independent sales process. This means that women may now do business from the comfort of their own homes, thanks to the automation afforded by this newfound digital capability.
What happens is retailers can browse tens of thousands of wholesale items in different categories, such as cosmetics, toiletries, home goods, and electronics. They select items they wish to sell, set their own profit margins, and then advertise the items on platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp.
Elenas' platform is responsible for not only purchasing products but also arranging for their shipment and collecting payments. In the past year, over 2 million orders were sold, and millions of dollars were made by more than 100,000 women in Colombia and Mexico through the app.
The Success Behind Elenas
In 2021, many social commerce startups were funded by big companies. However, not all of them were successful and highly profitable. Oschin mentioned that these result in the cases of shutting down or laying off staff after achieving a "unicorn" status, wherein firms are deemed as rare or high value.
Oschin claimed that Elenas broke this trend by focusing on non-perishable things from the start, like lifestyle products, home goods, fashion, and accessories. This yielded larger profit margins and ticket prices, he said.
Another method was to use existing infrastructure. This concept allowed the corporation to expand to 600 communities in Colombia and Mexico, including rural areas.
This article is owned by Tech Times
Written by Trisha Kae Andrada
