Upmesh Launches Its Livestream Shopping App For Instagram Live Merchants After Closing A $7.5 Million Pre-Series A Round

Singapore-based startup Upmesh has raised $7.5 million in a pre-series A round led by Monk’s Hill Ventures. The funding rounds comes about two months after the startup concluded a $3 million seed round, bringing the total amount of funds raised by the startup to $10.5 million.

Upmesh assists merchants who sell using online platforms and more importantly social media to increase their sales through analytics. Upmesh tools help these merchants to identify items with the highest turnover rates and patterns of buying behaviours. Apart from these, its tools also provide merchants with e-commerce functions that automatically capture orders made in livestream comments and send these prospective buyers a checkout link.

The startup plans to use the newly-acquired pre-Series A funds to increase its presence in Southeastern Asia and to also launch its first Instagram Live selling app. It will also provide backend automation features like automation for logistics.

Upmesh has experienced steady growth since it came into the scene and faces competition from other e-commerce platforms such as Lazada, Shopee, Shopline, etc. Upmesh, however, offers live commerce on social media that has helped it amass both buyers and sellers on its platform. This gives the startup an edge over its competitors.

The startup, since it concluded its seed funding round, has almost doubled the number if online merchants using its service, and has grown its merchant base by 30 percent. In October alone, 300 live commerce merchants across Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines used Upmesh. The company also announced an annual GMV of $40 million.

Speaking about Upmesh and how ‘live commerce’ is changing the e-commerce scene, co-founder and managing partner of Monk’s Hill Ventures, Kuo-Yi Lim said that “Live commerce is transforming e-Commerce and shaping the buying behaviour of the digital consumer in Southeast Asia. While Upmesh provides a full technology and service stack to enable live commerce, it is even more critical to enabling small and medium sellers at scale. Small and medium sellers from the fastest-growing segment in e-Commerce and their needs are largely unmet. Upmesh is focused on meeting their needs”.

“We are glad to join forces with Monk’s Hill Ventures in our mission to transform e-Commerce. We are united in our shared belief that community is the next frontier for e-Commerce, and live commerce is the ideal medium for bringing community and commerce together”, Wong Zi Yang, CEO and co-founder of Upmesh said.