Russia-based e-commerce marketplace Ozon has raised $150m in financing from investors including diversified conglomerate Sistema, Reuters reported yesterday.
Investment firm Princeville Capital provided $50m in convertible note financing that will be added to $100m recently supplied by Sistema and private equity firm Baring Vostok. Emmanuel DeSousa, managing partner at Princeville, has taken a board seat at Ozon.
Ozon operates an e-commerce platform that, like Amazon, initially concentrated on books before widening its product range into a host of other consumer items. It offers next-day delivery and runs a logistics operation that stretches across eight fulfilment centres.
The funding will be used to strengthen the company’s logistics resources in addition to its technology capabilities, according to Reuters, which reported in June 2019 that it was considering a possible flotation in the next two years.
Sistema and Baring Vostok had invested $154m in Ozon in April the same year and each owned stakes sized at about 40% according to Reuters, with unnamed investment funds holding the rest of its shares.
Mobile network Mobile TeleSystems (MTS) had agreed in February 2019 to sell its 18.7% share of the company to Sistema for approximately $119m, valuing it at $634m.
Both investors had paid $75m for 10.8% stakes in Ozon in 2014, but MTS had raised its shareholding through subsequent secondary share purchases.
The company had previously raised about $270m including $100m from e-commerce firm Rakuten, Ru-Net, Index Ventures and Alpha Associates in 2011.
Baring Vostok was an earlier investor as, reportedly, was networking technology provider Cisco and HV Holtzbrinck Ventures, though neither Holtzbrinck Ventures nor Index Ventures currently lists Ozon as a current or exited investment.
Photo courtesy of Ozon.ru.
