🧶🛒 The Etsy of South Korea Wants to be The Etsy of Asia

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I know most of you are on leave because Chinese New Year's eve is tomorrow so just sit back, relax and enjoy today's issue.

Here's what we got for you:

• 🌊 The SEA - Backpackr - The Etsy of South Korea wants to be the Etsy of Asia

• ⛵ SEAppets - JD.id will shut down its logistics arm, JDL Express Indonesia

• 💰 SEA Deals  

• 🖼️ AI Image of the day

• 🐣 Tweet of the day

Markets 📈

After the launch of eBay, the first internet business to use the marketplace model, we've seen literally the business model applied to all kinds of industries. And today we're going to talk about one of those.

Handmade marketplace, particularly in South Korea.

I'm talking about Backpackr which operates a handmade marketplace called idus.

🤷‍♂️ Who is Backpackr? 

• Backpackr not only operates a handmade marketplace but also operates a crowdfunding platform called Tumblbug which it acquired in 2020.

• They also launched a Patreon-like subscription service, Steadio, to connect artists with their fans

• They are capitalizing on the creator economy with the goal of becoming a one-stop-shop platform for creators

💰 Funding

• Early January 2023, Backpackr managed to raise a USD $16million extension to its Series C financing, two and a half years after its first Series C which was USD $24 million

• Backpackr plans to use the fresh capital to enter the Southeast Asia market in hopes of becoming the Etsy of Asia

• They intend to sell made in South Korea products overseas while allowing sellers from SEA to sell their homemade goods to South Korea

🤔 Easier said than done

• But in order to do that, they would probably need to compete with the Etsy of each of those countries:

• Japan - Minne and Creema 

• Taiwan - Pinkoi

• Thailand - Blisby

• It's gonna be a tough battle and they're going to all the luck (and cash) they could get their hands on

Here's an idea: why not create the Gumroad of Asia?

SEAppets ⛵

1. JD.id will shut down its logistics arm, JDL Express Indonesia on the 22nd of January. The announcement comes after a report saying JD.com plans to exit Indonesia and Thailand early this year. Last month, the company slashed 30% of its workforce.

2. After Tesla offered massive discounts on its key models due to their loss in market share, Vietnam's EV maker, VinFast said they too, will launch promotions to protect the competitiveness of its models. VinFast is gearing up to take on the big boys in the States by offering two models, the VF8 and VF9 which have starting prices of USD$59,000 and USD$83,000 respectively.

3. Indonesia property startup, Pinhome has appointed Fibriyani Elastria as chief marketing officer. Prior to Pinhome, Elastria was the CMO of GoPay, GoTo's mobile payment arm. Pinhojeme currently works with over 20,000 real estate agents and offers more than 700,000 unique property listings in around 400 cities in Indonesia.

4. AirTrunk, a hyperscale data centre specialist announced its entry into Malaysia with a planned 150+ megawatt( MW) data centre. Malaysia has recently seen a wave of large companies coming into the country to build hypercscale data centres so much so that MDEC recently stated that data centres recorded the most investments in Malaysia in 2022. The Malaysian data centre market is also expected to be worth USD $2 billion by 2026.

Fun fact: I'm actually working on this project.

SEA Deals 💰

1. CGC or Creative Gorilla Capital, a new VC platform initiated by a collaboration between Future Creative Network (FCN), Vynn Capital, and Pomona, has rolled out a USD $20 million fund. The fund is seeking D2C startups in Indonesia that embrace sustainability, social equality, and responsible consumerism to invest in.

C'mon Indonesia, what's your secret??

AI images of the day 🖼️

IKEA catalogue but with messy rooms

How your IKEA room will really look.

Tweet of the day 🐣

life is a single-player game

That's a wrap for today. See you all tomorrow! 👋