An ambitious goal

• 500-backed Una Brands is less than a year old, but the startup has already acquired several Australian companies. Co-founder Adrian Johnston expects to acquire at least 15 more by the end of the year.
• “We’ve got a roadmap to 100 acquisitions, which will more or less take us to unicorn status,” he added.
• The startup, which operates across Singapore, Australia, and Malaysia, looks for sellers on popular e-commerce platforms and offers to acquire them. It is then integrated into Una’s platform. Areas such as marketing and data analytics are streamlined, with an aim of rapidly growing the newly acquired business.
• In May, Una raised US$40 million. According to Adrian, it is currently in the midst of an “extremely oversubscribed” Series A and is already preparing for a Series B.
• Read the full story on The Sydney Morning Herald here.

A pro tip

• Kendrick Wong, CEO and co-founder of 500-backed fashion analytics platform Omnilytics, penned a thought leadership piece on e27 on how small businesses can level the playing field to compete with bigger e-tail marketplaces.
• He believes there is plenty of room to scale – while the Asia Pacific is leading the pack in terms of global retail growth, Southeast Asia has the lowest e-commerce share. A report predicts the value of the region’s e-commerce to nearly double in five years, from a US$132 billion sales forecast in 2021.
• But how can small retail businesses get a piece of this pie? “Artificial intelligence can go a long way,” shared Kendrick. “[It can transform] the entirety of the data collection process: from creating self-enhancing models that can accurately filter through the data to the consolidation of the data to provide visualized insights.”
• Get more details on e27 here.

A splash of happiness

• 500-backed omnichannel fashion platform Pomelo has struck up an exclusive collaboration with Pantone, known for its global standard for color communication. Together, they launched a limited edition collection featuring essential wear in Pantone’s most popular shades.
• The campaign, fronted by a line-up of inspiring women from Singapore, aims to deliver hope and joy to consumers amid the pandemic.
• The collection comprises 55 pieces and is made from sustainable cotton. According to the article, Pomelo also uses 100% compostable packaging and to date, has managed to cut back on over 200,000 pieces of single-use packaging.
• Read more on Marketing Interactive here.