Zilingo, an e-commerce company which deals in Southeast-Asia fashion was founded 4 years ago by a Mumbai based entrepreneur, Ankiti Bose. Recently, this 4 year old start-up was valued at $970 million as per latest reports. This made Bose, the first Indian female who was the co-founder and CEO of a high-value startup of this value.
Zilingo, is one of the most successful companies in the region by the various Indian entreprenuers, valuing USD 306 million dollars in funding from Sequoia Capital and Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund Temasek and Germany’s Burda Principal Investments.
Ankiti bose, is a graduate from ST. Xavier’s College Mumbai, in the year of 2012. She has degree in economics and maths. She believes in empathy and being sensitive towards all cultures and regions, has helped her succeed. Concept of female founders is considerably rare in the world of startups globally.
Bose fondly recalls that during the initial days, they were just a team of 20 members, now they are a team of almost 100 people working in the Bangalore office. They started off by helping small merchants sell their products and have been adding new product and helping sellers grow by using technology effectively.
The company today is a part of the group of founders in the Southeast Asia and is currently capitalizing of the rapid growth of smartphones and growing income of the people living in these countries. In the year of 2018 online shopping reached $23 billion and is expected to grow more than USD 100 billion by the year of 2025.
Zilingo’s revenue was USD 1.8 million in the financial year end of 2017 and reported a revenue growth of 12 times as per reports given by the company. Since setting up presence in Thailand and Cambodia in 2015 they have currently offices in 4 countries and around 400 employees. The company today offer’s fashion e-commerce options in four countries and is expected to launch in Australia too.