Pakpobox raised pre-Series A funding for its smart locker platform

Pakpobox Hong Kong Limited -- which provides intelligent products, services and solutions based on the Internet of Things -- recently closed its pre-Series A funding round for US$1.2 million led by Infinity Venture Partners, a Japan-based VC. SQ Capital Group and The Aria Group also took part.

This new money takes Hong Kong-based Pakpobox to total funding of close to US$2 million from investors to date. In April 2017, Pakpobox received funding from Betatron and Kevin Li, founder and chairman of 4PX Express, a leading China-based cross-border logistics solutions provider that was invested by Alibaba’s logistics arm Cainiao in 2016.

The funding will primarily be used by Pakpobox to expand its smart locker network in Hong Kong and Asia, and to incorporate additional lifestyle services into its smart lockers network to provide unique value-added user experiences to consumers. As e-commerce continues to grow, Pakpobox believes that in the future every building would have a smart locker. It operates one of the largest smart locker networks in Hong Kong with around 3,500 compartment doors installed all over Hong Kong, mainly in shopping malls and residential estates, handling over 20,000 parcels per month.

Apart from parcel delivery, Pakpobox also integrates and provides various lifestyle services to its smart locker network such as laundry services and parcel returns. A new lifestyle service brand and App ALFRED is planned to be launched in the first half of 2018.

Pakpobox’s co-founder and Chairman Sheldon Li said: “As the e-commerce market and parcel volumes continue to grow, smart lockers as a cost-effective delivery channel with much potential for automation and labour saving as compared to traditional home delivery has a huge growth potential. We believe that smart lockers would carry the same weight for parcel delivery in this e-commerce age as the mailbox for mail delivery in the past.”

He added that Pakpobox’s future strategy is to expand our smart locker network in Hong Kong and Asia whilst also expanding into new vertically integrated services by introducing lifestyle services to provide value-adds to the consumers and to utilise its smart locker capacities. “Our goal is to become one of the top three smart locker operators in the Asia-Pacific region.”

Matthew Ng, Pakpobox’s co-founder and CEO, commented: “Our funding rounds attracted investors from Japan, China and Hong Kong with strong connections and resources in logistics, e-commerce, property management, real estate developers and banking, which we believe would provide strategic value to fuel our growth plan for the Asia-Pacific region and lifestyles services.

The current round of funding will primarily be used to expand Pakpobox’s smart locker network in Hong Kong, Indonesia and Australia and resources would be deployed to incorporate lifestyle services within its smart lockers.

Pakpobox was founded in 2014 to build a smart locker network as the last mile delivery solution for e-commerce logistics. Its network currently covers Hong Kong, China, Indonesia, Australia, Malaysia, Macau, Maldives and Myanmar, with clients including postal operators in Asia. Pakpobox’s B2C smart locker network allows consumers to deliver their online e-commerce purchases to smart lockers that can be collected 24/7.