Kathmmandu, May 9, 2018: One of the most popular e-commerce platforms operating in Nepal, Daraz has now been acquired by Alibaba Group from China, according an statement by Rocket Internet, the Pakistani parent company of Daraz.
The platform was founded in 2012 and has operations in marketplaces in Bangladesh, Myanmar and Sri Lanka apart from Nepal. The statement issued by Rocket Internet claimed that the platform is catering to a combined population of over 460 million, 60 percent of the population being under 35.
Daraz has been operating in Nepal since 2014, it started off as Kaymu.com. It was renamed as Daraz in 2016 when Rocket Internet decided to merge these two platforms and create one Daraz group.
Together with Daraz, the Alibaba Group looks forward to empower entrepreneurs to serve the consumers better through its technology and expertise. “ In Dara, we found a great team that espouses our values and believes that a technology-enabled commerce’s ecosystem will play a critical role in driving long-term economic development in Soth Asia”, said Daniel Zhang, chief executive officer of Alibaba Group.
There are over a dozen e-commerce websites in operation in the country. They are all promoted and initiated by domestic investors. A promising market for growth, lot of new startups including sunaulodeals.com and foodmario have set up themselves in the Nepali e-commerce market.
