Enstack, Southeast Asia’s first SME superapp, has announced the completion of a $3M Series A funding round led by Mangrove Capital Partners, indicating investors’ growing interest in capitalizing on the demand for digitization among small businesses.
Founded by former Shopee Philippines country lead Macy Castillo and Skype co-founder Geoffrey Prentice, Enstack provides small and medium enterprises (SME) with an end-to-end app to manage their businesses, including multiple storefronts, inventory, and integrated payment and shipping solutions. A female-led startup that knows how to empower the predominantly-female local SME landscape, Enstack came out of beta last October, saw 5x growth in the fourth quarter of 2022, and is expected to grow by another 10x by year-end. Bannered by leading merchants in food, fashion, and beauty, the app’s growth highlights the appetite of SMEs to digitize business operations.
Enstack’s key investors help support the company’s strategic initiatives. This investment marks Mangrove Capital’s first in Southeast Asia after a rich history of backing global tech leaders including communications giant Skype and website builder Wix. Other participants include Southeast Asia payments unicorn Xendit, who is excited to be an active partner in addressing the urgent need for digital payments in small businesses and William Kim of Shinsegae International whose expertise in health and beauty helps the superapp marry industry insights with the team’s hyperlocal SME knowledge.
“Enstack’s mission is to empower underserved SMEs with integrated tools that grant flexibility, in a business landscape that is shaping-up to be a combination of both online and offline commerce. The all-in-one superapp makes it simple for businesses to digitize regardless of what business they own and where they are in their entrepreneurial journey,” said Castillo.
“Southeast Asia is seeing the rise of its own ‘Commerce 3.0’ where merchants are demanding more tailored solutions to their growing businesses online and offline. Armed with expertise and experience from the last decade in Southeast Asia e-commerce, our team created Enstack as a response to barriers to SME digitization. We have seen small businesses embrace and transition to digital and look forward to building on this momentum to help more SMEs in the Philippines and the rest of Southeast Asia be future-ready,” she adds.
“The right combination of timing, innovation, and an experienced team sparks confidence in this venture. Our investment in Enstack’s game-changing product reminds us of when we’ve made winning bets on early commerce disruptors that have successfully helped SMEs create and expand their digital footprints,” shares Mark Tluszcz, CEO of Mangrove Capital and Chairman of Wix. “We firmly believe in Enstack’s capacity to set the standard of how tech for SMEs should be done – marrying technical know-how with a thorough understanding of the market’s local nuances. This shared milestone excites us to further help empower underserved SMEs in the region,” he adds.
According to the International Institute for Management Development’s World Digital Competitiveness Ranking 2022, Southeast Asian economies have varying levels of capacity and readiness to shift to digitization. The Philippines still lags behind neighbors, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia in its ability and readiness to embrace digitization as a “key driver for economic transformation in business, government and wider society.” Enstack offers a superapp that fulfills the diverse needs of entrepreneurs across the region, making it easy for business owners to digitize, no matter what kind of business they own or where they are in their entrepreneurial journey.
