May 23 (SeeNews) - Romanian used phone marketplace Flip said on Monday it has secured a 6.5 million euro ($6.9 million) investment from eMAG Ventures, the investment arm of Romanian online retail group eMAG.
This latest investment will fund the company's international expansion, as it targets a market leading position in the Central and Eastern European used electronics markets, Flip said in a press release.
"With the technological and operational know-how of eMAG, we have taken our first step towards international expansion and a rapid upscaling of our business sooner than expected," Flip founders George Moroianu, Alin Luca and Alex Burghelia said.
eMAG Ventures has so far invested a total of 8 million euro in Flip to support its international expansion.
eMAG Ventures' previous 1.5 million euro investment tranche was deployed in October, a transaction which also involved the investors' takeover of a minority shareholders’ stake in the startup. As a result of the transaction, the founders of Flip.ro kept a 57.74% stake in the company.
Earlier this month, Flip announced that it will start operations on the Bulgarian market at the beginning of June, expecting to reach 20,000 customers by the end of 2022.
In 2021, Flip booked 13.4 million euro in sales and reached over 100,000 clients locally.
Founded in 2019, Flip.ro is a refurbished electronics online marketplace.
The startup booked a net profit of 67,600 lei in 2020 ($14,500/13,600 euro), compared to a net loss of 150,224 lei in the previous year, latest data available on the finance ministry's website showed. The company’s turnover soared to 12.07 million lei in 2020 from 174,156 lei in 2019.
EMAG Ventures is an investment programme led by eMAG, geared towards select Romanian tech startups, with Flip being its first major investment.
(1 euro = 4.9477 Romanian lei)
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