Coupang, South Korea’s leading e-commerce company, said Wednesday it has secured new funding worth $1 billion from Japanese telecom giant SoftBank in a deal that would fuel its global expansion.
The company said that the investment is expected to close at the beginning of July and will bring the total amount of funding it has raised over the past year to nearly $1.4 billion.
In 2014, Coupang raised $300 million in an investment led by U.S. asset manager BlackRock. It also won a $100 million investment from U.S. investment firm Sequoia Capital.
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| Coupang founder and CEO Bom Kim |
“We welcome SoftBank as a long-term partner and look forward to leveraging their global expertise and vast network to further accelerate our growth,” said Coupang founder and CEO Bom Kim.
SoftBank chairman Masayoshi Son also said the company “looks forward to supporting Coupang as they further revolutionize e-commerce.”
Six years after its launch, Coupang has grown into one of the nation’s biggest online retailers. Its mobile payment transactions hit 1.4 trillion won ($1.3 billion) last year, more than doubling from 600 billion won in 2013.
The company said the new funding will be used to fuel innovations in its end-to-end fulfillment service, same-day delivery network and leading mobile applications as well as expand research and development facilities in Silicon Valley, Seattle and Shanghai.
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| SoftBank chairman Masayoshi Son |
Coupang currently operates eight warehouses across the nation and plans to double the number in coming years. The company aims to complete a new 99,173-square-meter warehouse ― the largest of its kind in Korea ― in Incheon by 2016.
Along with its renewed commitment to logistics, the company has hired a slew of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs to its management team in recent years.
By Lee Ji-yoon (jylee@heraldcorp.com)
