Burda Principal Investments, the venture growth firm of German media giant Hubert Burda, may have been out of the limelight for about a year, but Albert Shyy, who heads its operations here, says the firm has been busy in Southeast Asia. Instead of doing multiple deals, Burda has participated in subsequent financing rounds for Singapore-headquartered fashion marketplace Zilingo and recently led the $19-million Series B round for Carsome, a Malaysia-based company that also operates in Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand.
“We have put more money in Southeast Asia so far this year and it has cascaded into these two companies (Zilingo and Carsome). It wasn’t the strategy we planned to adopt – it was really about the potential that we saw in both of them,” Shyy said in an interaction with the portal.
He further said the firm was bullish on Zilingo: “We believe there’s a good chance that Zilingo might be a unicorn in the next 6 to 12 months.”
This portal had recently reported that Zilingo is in talks with its existing investors to raise around $80 million for its Series D round in a deal that could value the three-year-old e-commerce startup at over $500 million. This comes within months of its Series C round in April this year, when it bagged $54-million Series C largely from its existing investors Sofina, Burda Principal Investments and Sequoia Capital India. That round was joined by return backers Tim Draper, SIG, Venturra, Beenext and Manik Arora, as well as new investor Amadeus Capital.
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