Zilingo was an ecommerce fashion platform founded in 2015 by Ankiti Bose and Dhruv Kapoor, with operations spanning India, Singapore, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Thailand, Philippines, Australia and the United States.[1][2] The company once valued at close to one billion dollars[3] ceased operations in 2022 amidst scandal and mismanagement.[4] It sold its tech assets to Swiss firm Buyogo in January 2023.[5] It entered liquidation in February 2023[6][7] with sources indicating there was nothing left to be recovered.[3] Lawsuits related to the implosion of the business remain ongoing.[8]
History
Founding and growth
Zilingo, a play on the word "zillion", was established in 2015 by two founders of Indian origin, Ankiti Bose[9] and Dhruv Kapoor.[10] The idea came from when Bose was on holiday in Bangkok and noticed that many of the small and medium-sized shops had no online presence.[11][12]
It began with seed funding from Sequoia India[13] and raised an additional $8 million in a Series A funding round in September 2016.[14] It raised an additional $18 million in 2017 in a Series B round[13] and $54 million in a Series C round in 2018.[15]
The company started off as a B2C long-tail fashion marketplace leveraging Southeast Asia's growing internet connectivity to bring small merchants from the street markets of Bangkok and Jakarta into the e-commerce fold.[16]
Zilingo later expanded focus towards B2B opportunities.[16][17] This included products designed to help merchants and manufacturers manage their e-commerce business including inventory management, sales tracking, financing, sourcing procurement, and a ‘style hunter’ for identifying upcoming fashion trends.[16]
Expansion efforts led the company to be valued at nearly one billion dollars by 2019.[18] Their fashion platform took a cut whenever it was used to broker a deal or make a sale,[19] as part of the company vision of making the fashion supply chain a levelled playing field.[20]
In September 2017, Zilingo was shipping to eight countries and had added 5,000 new merchants in the previous twelve months.[13] By September 2019 the company was generating 80% of its revenue from B2B operations.[21]
In 2019, the company raised $226 million in a Series D round from existing investors Sequoia India, Burda Capital, Sofina with Singapore's sovereign fund Temasek Holdings joining the tech-platform's capital table.[22] The latest round took the tech-platform to US$308 million from investors, making it one of Southeast Asia's highest capitalised startups.[23]
The company closed its US and Australia offices in 2020, to focus on business in Asia.[24] In July 2020, a second round of terminations was carried out in Thailand, India, and Indonesia offices, with an estimated additional 12% of employees being laid off globally. CFO James Perry resigned following the rounds of downsizing.[25]
Dismissal of CEO
On March 30 whistleblowers approached the Zilingo board reporting a series of unexplained payments approved by Ankiti Bose to companies with no connection to Zilingo operations.[3] On 31 March 2022, Bose was suspended as CEO.[26][27] On 20 May 2022 Bose was fired from Zilingo.[28]
Management buyout
On 20 June 2022, the cofounders of Zilingo, Dhruv Kapoor and Ankiti Bose, sent a proposal to the board for a management buyout (MBO),[29] making a last ditch effort to buy the embattled fashion platform.[30][31]
Lawsuits
In April 2024 Bose filed a $100 million dollar defamation lawsuit against investor Mahesh Murthy for an article he wrote in Outlook Business magazine.[32] She also filed a criminal complaint against co-founder Dhruv Kapoor and ex-COO Aadi Vaidya.[33][34] In May one of Zilingo's primary investor citing "significant financial regularities" indicated an intent to sue Bose,[35][36] while Bose filed a further defamation lawsuit against Kapoor and Vaidya.[37]
Technology and commerce
Zilingo started off as a mobile-first eCommerce marketplace and expanded into a B2B tech-platform. Their seller management platform offered small retailers and longtail brands online distribution, inventory management tools and APIs for logistics.[38]
Their seller management tool became profitable by 2018, offering financial services, a “style hunter", product sourcing, and content / photography services. Zilingo's customer base expanded to include fashion sellers, SMEs, Southeast Asian brands and B2B businesses.[39]
Zilingo's tech assets were sold to Swiss firm Butogo in January 2023.
