What comes to mind when you hear about Indonesia? As it turns out, Indonesia is the 4th largest country in the world by population and is made up of 17,000 islands. Due to its unique geography, Indonesia has over 2,500 logistics providers making it challenging for any third-party logistics (3PL) service to provide nationwide coverage.
Today, we are thrilled to announce our investment in Shipper’s seed round.
Based in Jakarta, Shipper is building an API-driven, asset-light logistics service founded by Phil Opamuratawongse and Budi Handoko. Shipper powers door-to-door fulfillment across Indonesia and has built a universal API that aggregates over 150 logistics partners representing 75% market share of carriers. Shipper’s product allows merchants to easily consolidate, manage, and optimize package delivery via a “logistics-as-a-service” offering based on desired services levels, pricing, and reliability.
In Indonesia, shipping and logistics are highly fragmented and have not evolved substantially over time. On average, Indonesia’s shipping costs are 2–3x greater than in other Southeast Asian countries due to the lack of coverage by each 3PL. In many parts of Indonesia, the larger 3PLs are significantly less cost-effective than regional carriers who have fewer but more repeatable local routes. Because merchants do not have real-time visibility on rates and reliability across logistics providers, they are not able to proactively choose the best logistics partner.
The rapid growth of e-commerce in Indonesia and Southeast Asia represents tailwinds for Shipper. An increasing trend of convenience and online merchants has driven up shipment volumes — approximately 1 billion online orders are expected in Indonesia in 2019 growing to 3 billion in 2023. Both 3PL companies and merchants in Indonesia have become amenable to technology integrations to improve package delivery efficiencies, reduce costs and increase transparency. Shipper provides sellers with first mile pick-ups through their partners, an API to optimize delivery, and a Track Your Order capability that gives both sellers and buyers visibility into package location and delivery status. For warehouses and hubs, Shipper provides software that integrates with their existing inventory management system.
While Lightspeed’s efforts in Southeast Asia are ramping up, it all started two years ago when I met Phil during his time investing at Floodgate and we bonded over Muay Thai kickboxing. I always believed Phil had a unique background and hustle to run a startup in Southeast Asia. A native of Thailand, Phil is a Stanford graduate and spent time as a management consultant at McKinsey in both Thailand and Silicon Valley. Noticing the trends of e-commerce and logistics in Southeast Asia, Phil linked up with Budi Handoko and joined Shipper as CEO.
At Lightspeed, we are excited to partner with Shipper on its journey to becoming the e-commerce logistics platform for Southeast Asia by bringing modern software to sellers and 3PLs. If you are an e-commerce business selling into Southeast Asia looking to optimize your logistics, check out Shipper.
