Posted on 04/16/2022
Global institutional investors sometimes understand that timing is everything, and as the IPO market has stalled, some sovereign wealth funds may be keeping a tight grip on some of their unicorn startup investments.
Based in Singapore, Zilingo is an online fashion marketplace focused on Southeast Asia. An investigation initiated by Singapore’s Temasek Holdings and Sequoia Capital India revealed some accounting irregularities. Zilingo co-founder and CEO Ankiti Bose has been suspended from Zilingo. Bose has denied allegations of wrongdoing. Zilingo started in Thailand in 2015 and was founded by Ankiti Bose at the age of 23 and Dhruv Kapoor. She was a former analyst at Sequoia Capital India and McKinsey & Company and worked in Bangalore.
Zilingo is under investigation for accounting practices. Referring to publicly available records on Singapore Accounting Authority’s website, Zilingo has not filed annual reports for 2020 and 2021 and the latest report was for March 2019. Sequoia Capital India’s Shailendra Singh has left Zilingo’s Board of Directors. Sequoia Capital India subsequently appointed Sandeep Kher, Director and Head of Portfolio Finance at Sequoia Capital India, as Board Director of Zilingo. Previously, both directors of Temasek Holdings (Xu Weiyang) and Burda Principal Investments (Albert Shyy) resigned. According to the annual financial statements dated March 31, 2019, Zilingo had an operating loss in the tens of millions.
The music stops
Zilingo tried to raise $150 million with the help of Goldman Sachs Group. Zilingo attempted to achieve unicorn status with a valuation of over $1 billion. Zilingo has raised approximately $350 million in venture capital funding. In February 2019, Zilingo raised $226 million in Series D funding from Singapore’s Economic Development Board (EDBI) and return investors Temasek Holdings, Sequoia Capital India, Burda Principal Investments and Sofina. In April 2018, Zilingo raised $54 million in a Series C round led by Sofina, Burda Principal Investments and Sequoia Capital India. Zilingo’s other existing investors, including Tim Draper, SIG, Venturra, Beenext and Manik Arora, all participated in the Series C round, with Amadeus Capital also joining the round. For a Southeast Asian startup, Zilingo has raised a lot of money over its peers over its lifecycle.
In September 2017, Zilingo raised US$18 million in a Series B financing co-led by Sequoia Capital India and Burda Principal Investments.
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