Electronics marketplace Reebelo secures US$20m to fund global expansion

SINGAPORE-BASED refurbished electronics marketplace Reebelo has raised US$20 million in a Series A funding round led by venture capital firms Cathay Innovation and June Fund, it announced in a statement on Tuesday (Feb 15).

Participating investors include FJ Labs, Kream, Moore Strategic Ventures, French Partners and Gandel Invest. Returning investors Antler, Lazada's co-founder Maximilian Bittner and Michael Cassau, the founder of German electronics rental platform Grover, also joined the round.

Founded in 2019, Reebelo is a licensed online marketplace selling pre-owned electronic devices at affordable prices.

Its marketplace houses over 100 vendors certified by Reebelo who list an array of products including mobile phones, laptops, tablets, drones and gaming hardware.

The platform differentiates itself from competitors by providing customers with a 2-year warranty. Most used-devices sellers provide a 3-month warranty.

Reebelo also demands a stringent product quality assessment - involving 40-plus checkpoints - before vendors can list a device online.

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"We very carefully select the vendors we choose to work with - only professionals that have been in the business for a few years," said Reebelo's co-founder and chief product officer Fabien Rastouil in an interview with The Business Times (BT).

In Reebelo's early days, its founders personally reached out to vendors such as Wmart, a licensed Singapore-based electronics store operating since 2017 that buys, refurbishes and sells devices.

Wmart told BT that listing its devices on Reebelo has helped grow its sales. The number of smartphones it has sold on the platform accounts for 25 to 30 per cent of its total smartphone orders.

Reebelo earns up to 10 per cent in commission, said another Singapore vendor, Mobile City. The commission rate varies according to device.

Each month, the online marketplace sees 10,000 customers who purchase at least 1 device, according to co-founder and chief executive officer Philip Franta.

With the fresh funds, Reebelo plans to foray into new regions, beyond its current Singapore and Australia markets, and hire more employees.

The company has been expanding into Malaysia, Hong Kong, Taiwan and New Zealand and is looking to set foot in the US and South Korea, said Franta.

With Reebelo expanding to new markets, Franta added that the company will support vendors in selling their products overseas. For instance, Singapore vendors will be able to ship their products to Australian customers.

According to market intelligence firm International Data Corporation, used smartphone shipments is forecasted to reach 351.6 million units in 2024 globally, up from 225.5 million units in 2020, a wave that Reebelo is looking to ride.

North America will account for 27 per cent of the market by 2024.

A major player in the refurbished electronics marketplace, Back Market, which operates in 16 countries including the US, France and Germany, closed a US$510 million Series E funding round in January, valuing the company at US$5.7 billion.

Reebelo was born out of Antler's startup incubator programme. The company also graduated from StartupX's pre-accelerator programme HyperSpark, a partnership with Temasek.