SaaS tech firm Anchanto aims to handle 1 million orders by the end of 2018

SelluSeller has redefined the way Manila-based Cotton Depot Enterprise conducts e-Commerce operations on multiple online channels. “All our backend operations and logistics processes are now aligned and are accessible through a centralised dashboard. Our revenues are soaring and we are putting in much lesser efforts than before,” said Charles Sy, chief executive officer of Cotton Depot Enterprise.

SelluSeller is a product offering of Anchanto which is registered in Singapore but has its largest team and operational base in Pune. Founded in June 2011 by Vaibhav Dabhade, Anchanto’s SaaS (software as a service) platforms connect e-Commerce sellers, brands, retailers and warehousing & fulfilment service providers to online sales channels.  

Anchanto founder Vaibhav Dabhade

The SaaS technology company has recently raised $4 million in the first round of its ongoing Series C investment, led by MDI Ventures, Telkom Indonesia’s corporate venture capital arm. It expects a total funding of $15 million in this round.

Nicko Widjaja, CEO and investment director of MDI Ventures, said: “This investment complements our efforts in the e-commerce sector, tackling different market segments of Indonesia’s logistics landscape with different approaches. As products become more diverse, e-commerce will need to optimise the supply chain to be delivered as quickly as possible to the customers. Anchanto’s eWMS provides one of the best-dedicated systems to synchronise warehouse management, transportation, and analytics systems.” 

Product concept

Anchanto is primarily a technology company, offering robust SaaS products to online sellers, retailers, brands, distributors, service providers, third-party logistics (3PLs), postal associations and warehousing players across Southeast Asia.

The company’s eWMS is a warehouse management system for anyone who manages or operates warehouses for e-Commerce (B2C) or retail businesses (B2B). 3PLs firms or e-Commerce distributors running on Anchanto eWMS get ready integrations with rest of the ecosystem partners on which they depend to ship orders.

“Most existing warehouses management systems are not built for e-commerce business needs. Companies are using retail warehouse management system for e-Commerce order... Hence, we reimagined and developed a warehouse management system that is compact to the core and facilitates B2B and B2C operations productively,” Dabhade said. Anchanto eWMS provides integration with leading marketplaces such as Amazon, Flipkart, eBay, ShopClues, Paytm, and Alibaba.

Similarly, the company observed that online sellers needed to deal with a deluge of procedures in order to sell their products online on multiple sales channels. “By focusing on pain points of online sellers, we developed our second offering, SelluSeller — an omnichannel SaaS platform that offers a one-stop solution to manage online selling on multiple local and cross-border sales channels,” he said. A DIY version of this product is available for small-scale online sellers and SMEs.

“Others are one-country platforms... We are the only platform which enables cross-border selling,” the founder said.

The company supports marketplaces for India, China, and Southeast Asian nations.

Opportunity

According to Statista, the Southeast Asian e-Commerce market is currently valued at $13 billion and is expected to reach $88 billion by 2025. The retail market is also expected to grow eightfold than its market size in 2017. All such overwhelming numbers put up a cogent case for Anchanto, Dabhade said.

The company charges monthly fixed-subscription fees based on the different modules its customers use. The charges range between $20 per month to $10,000 per month.

“Our pricing structure is specially designed for helping businesses grow. For a small seller processing 10 orders a day to a big distributor handling 35,000 orders per day, we charge a flat price that is much cheaper than our competitors," he said.

Anchanto has close to 6,500 customers, including online sellers and logistic companies. It handles about 250,000 orders per day and aims to have 10,000 customers and one million orders per day by the end of this year.

Since inception, the start-up has clocked a revenue of more than $8 million. “We can be profitable if we want to be. However, we are currently focused on expanding our market share instead of revenue. We will be profitable at scale by Q1 2019,” Dabhade said.

“Now that we are freshly fuelled, we will be using the recent investments to expand our market outreach and strengthen our presence in the Southeast Asian market. We will be investing in newer features, newer offices and newer teams,” the founder added.

Rijul Jain, Investments Team, Astarc Ventures

EXPERT TAKE: A win-win for all

Anchanto is a good example of how technology connects different ecosystem players to enable them to work together and ensures seamless data commuincation. It also reduces entry barriers for new-age brands and e-Commerce companies by offering them plug-and-play logistics solutions on the fulfilment part and also connects them to different global market places. The same way, it helps existing logistics players to become technology efficient to cater for e-Commerce firms.
 
Cross-border shipment and custom clearance is another beast which Anchanto helps solve for its customers. Overall it is a win-win situation for all parties involved. It helps logistics partners drive more business and make them accessible to new brands and e-commerce players. It helps brands drive more sales via the integration with global ecommerce channels.