Ula: Why Jeff Bezos is betting on this Indonesian e-commerce start-up

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Indonesian e-commerce start-up Ula is a wholesale marketplace aiming to modernize the country’s millions of mom-and-pop kiosks, or warungs, by providing inventory and delivery services as well as financing. 

Founded in January 2020 by CEO Nipun Mehra, the company has thrived under a pandemic-induced shift to digital, so far raising over $117 million in funding from big names like Tencent and Lightspeed Venture Partners.

One among them is Bezos Expeditions, whose billionaire owner was told about Ula by one of the start-up’s early backers. 

In a region where Amazon has limited presence, Jeff Bezos’s investment of an undisclosed sum through his family office can be seen as a vote of confidence. 

“If you’d have asked me at that time that there would be a day, you know, 15 years later, where this moment would come, I would have probably been like it’s a dream,” Mehra, a former Amazon employee, told CNBC Make It.

Watch the video above to find out how a former Amazon software engineer and his co-founders are reinventing e-commerce for a new market, and securing serious funding as they go.

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50 COMMENTS

  14. Indonesia will overcome pilipini in terms of economy it will become the next southeast asian giant because their population are more smarter than poor pilipiis. most pilipins business are just real estate specialist, insurance sales and multi level marketing mostly pyramid type promoting as a business. most pilipins startups are just copycat. They copy other business and promote as an alternative to foreign brands. They claim that pilipini compani is much better than the alternative. But even local copycat pilipini there are lots of complain

  20. I really don’t know why Indonesians have problems if the CEO is an Indian , I think they are forgetting that other co founders or partners are Indonesians as well

  21. ULA bring to your country this idea, like Amazon uses diesel vans (flex) moving to electric ones (Rivian) you can also moves all those enormous amounts of gasoline scooters to electric ones, making huge changes to the daily living of your compatriots, less noise and gas pollution, plus cheaper way to transport goods and people around the cities and small towns 👍😀

  26. this startup don't have a future because Indonesia is undergoing a change where manufacturers and distributors are cutting out the middleman. It works for now because poverty is still rampant in Indonesia but when the time comes when Indonesia is going to be a developed country this startup will have to adapt.

  27. Jeff Bezos shouldn't even be focusing on this at all.. Should be focusing on Blue Origin.. this is why Elon Musk is eating his lunch.. Bezos is just too scatter minded to focus on the big picture.

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