{"id":50450,"date":"2022-07-29T12:32:11","date_gmt":"2022-07-29T04:32:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/?p=50450"},"modified":"2022-07-29T12:32:15","modified_gmt":"2022-07-29T04:32:15","slug":"packworks-raises-2m-seed-round-to-launch-mobile-erp-platform-for-over-150000-store-partners-in-ph","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/2022\/07\/29\/packworks-raises-2m-seed-round-to-launch-mobile-erp-platform-for-over-150000-store-partners-in-ph\/","title":{"rendered":"Packworks raises $2M seed round to launch mobile ERP platform \u00a0for over 150,000 store-partners in PH"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Packworks has formally launched its mobile enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform for sari-sari store owners following a successful US$ 2 million (\u20b1 112 M) seed round.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The seed round is led by leading end-to-end logistics group Fast Group and global private equity firm CVC Capital Partners, with participation from ADB Ventures, Arise, Techstars, and IdeaSpace Foundation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt Fast, we constantly search for ways to improve our country\u2019s supply chain. The over 1 million sari-sari stores in the Philippines are a critical component of this chain, and we believe that an immense opportunity exists to build a digital layer to connect these stores with customers and suppliers. Layering Packworks\u2019 digital fabric to this network and leveraging its emerging data has exciting prospects for creating supply chain efficiencies, especially when combined with the experience and national scale of Fast.\u00a0 We are happy to partner with Bing, Ibba, Hubert and the dedicated team at Packworks to empower more micro-entrepreneurs and transform the way they do commerce,\u201d Brice Cu, Senior Managing Director and Country Head of Philippines for CVC Capital Partners and Board Member of Fast Group said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Packworks will use the fund to develop The Pack: SuperStore App, increase the breadth of offerings, and improve its user journey. It also plans to build a department that directly engages the sari-sari stores and provide additional services with partners, and build an open platform for financial institutions and brands to connect directly with store owners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe bootstrapped our way to helping 150,000 sari-sari stores. We\u2019re helping communities all over the Philippines to grow and become more resilient. Imagine how many more we can help with all these awesome partners. Our vision is now global,\u201d Ibba Bernardo, co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer of Packworks said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have raised funds to help us expand our talent pool and boost our bandwidth to provide more to these store owners. We believe that our product offers an excellent upside,\u201d Bing Tan, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Packworks .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Founded in 2018 with initial five sari-sari store-partners, Packworks worked on its way to having a 150,000 network nationwide and targeting to have 220,000 stores by the end of 2022 and 500,000 by end of 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Packworks aims to become a platform for other institutions that would like to help the base of the pyramid by addressing the sari-sari store challenge by enabling the value chain and empowering all the involved parties within the sari-sari ecosystem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe think of ourselves as the railway or expressway infrastructure and not as the gas station or fast food shop operator. We expand partnerships to provide these services to our stores, such as inventory financing, e-payments, and micro-insurance,\u201d Bernardo said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Sari-preneurs Companion<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through The Pack: SuperStore App, store owners can process their business\u2019 inventory, bookkeeping, and data collection. They can also avail of financial products and order supplies for a cheaper price without the hassle of coordinating and purchasing new stocks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The app is easy to use with low bandwidth and light footprint that will allow the users to process their businesses more efficiently with the goal of addressing the high cost of poverty, where store owners pay the highest interest rates and pay more for consumer goods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It also aims to bring down the interest cost and in handling money through access to e-payments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Started as a motorcycle journey in bringing solar panels to isolated communities, founders Hubert Yap, Bing Tan, and Ibba Bernardo came up with the idea of helping micro-entrepreneurs by bringing scalable and accessible technology to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Witnessing firsthand the challenges brought by limited access to sari-sari store owners, especially in far-flung places, they promised to share their technical know-how and inspire them to shift from analog processes to using technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe observed that these stores have a hard time tracking their inventories and getting supplies for their stores, especially the ones in the provinces. That\u2019s when the idea of making a one-stop app for everything pops out,\u201d Tan said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Packworks started out as a solution for multinational companies in the Philippines to connect with neighborhood stores in 2018. By 2019, the Packworks rolled out nationwide with only 220 stores with a gross merchandise value (GMV) of $400,000. After a year, it gathered 27,828 stores with GMV of $30 million, and it reached 130,000 stores with GMV of $139 million in 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe believe the idea will help millions more families that solely depend on their sari-sari store profits to meet ends every day,\u201d Tan added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The seed round is led by leading end-to-end logistics group Fast Group and global private equity firm CVC Capital Partners, with participation from ADB Ventures, Arise, Techstars, and IdeaSpace Foundation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":50451,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[96,2727,1656],"class_list":["post-50450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-technology","tag-technology-adaption","tag-technology-investment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}