Founding investor Naspers has joined a raft of VC investors for a round that boosted the fast-growing mobile commerce platform's total funding to $375m.
US-based e-commerce app operator Letgo raised $175m yesterday from investors including media and e-commerce group Naspers.
Naspers was joined in the round by investors including venture capital firms Accel, Insight Venture Partners and New Enterprise Associates, and commerce-focused VC fund 14W.
An accompanying statement by Letgo named Eight Roads Ventures, Mangrove Capital Partners and FJ Lab as investors but did not reveal whether they had contributed to the latest round.
Founded at the start of 2015, Letgo runs a mobile marketplace that has been downloaded more than 45 million times, and which has roughly 20 million monthly active users. Users can list items for sale simply by uploading a photograph, without needing to list a price or description.
The company increased its active user base by almost 360% in 2016 and the number of items posted for sale daily by 960%. It plans to invest the new funding in boosting its artificial intelligence and image recognition technology as it looks to grow in the US and globally.
Letgo did not disclose the valuation at which it raised its latest equity financing but co-founder Alec Oxenford told Forbes it was at a “significant premium” to the last round it closed, when it raised $100m in May 2016.
Naspers also took part in the 2016 round, investing alongside unnamed existing backers as Letgo merged with the US-based subsidiary of Spain-headquartered online classifieds platform Wallapop. Naspers had initially invested $100m in Letgo in September 2015.
Martin Scheepbouwer, CEO of Naspers’ classifieds division, said: “Letgo’s early growth is unprecedented for this type of platform and it has clearly tapped into an enormous consumer demand for a better way to buy and sell locally.
“In a short time, it has become a massive marketplace used by tens of millions of buyers and sellers. And its growth has only been accelerating.”
