Mobile marketplace Duriana, which is based in Malaysia but also has a huge presence in the Philippines, just disclosed secured a $2.5 million Series A funding.
Organized by its founding investor, Alps Ventures, the round was led by Beenos Asi, 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 $3.5 million.
Launched in November 2013, the Duriana team has worked 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.
?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,? said Amanda Ernst, Duriana CEO and cofounder.
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.?