Carousell, a mobile classifieds marketplace, announced that the company raised $35 million in funding from Rakuten Ventures, 500 Startups, Sequoia India and Golden Gate Ventures in early August.
The Series B Funding was a success for the company as the company is focused on expansion and talent.
The company announced at the time that the money raised would be used to strengthen its position as one of the world’s fastest growing mobile classified marketplaces. The company boasts over 70 new listings per minute and had over 35 million listings at the end of June 2016.
The Singapore-based company put the raised funds to use yesterday after the acquisition of Watch Over Me. The acquisition of a safety app for women was a talent grab for the company. Watch Over Me consists of a nine-person team and was based in Malaysia.
A TechCrunch report announced that five of nine employees will be joining the Carousell team.
Watch Over Me posted an announcement on their site stating “Watch Over Me will be shutting down August 31, 2016.” The company’s site states that the app has helped over 250,000 women feel safer.
“Unfortunately, the team behind Watch Over Me will be headed to another startup and we simply won’t have the resources needed to continue the service” states the site.
The team has decided to put the source code for their service on GitHub so that anyone that wants to open a similar service can use their source code. The service’s source code is open source allowing it to be distributed and modified freely.
Details of the acquisition have not been revealed.
Carousell operates in Asian countries with the app available in Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan.
“We aim to double our team by the end of 2016” the company told TechCrunch.
Watch Over Me has stated that many organizations and non-profits have reached out to the company eager to continue its service.
