The Vietnam-based retail chain for maternity and baby-care products will use the fresh funds to expand its local footprint and develop a super app for millions of Vietnamese mothers
Vietnam, 18 January 2022 – Quadria Capital, Asia’s leading healthcare investment firm, announced the completion of its $90 million investment in Con Cung, Vietnam’s largest and fastest-growing mom and baby retail network. The fund will be used to support Con Cung’s ambition to launch 2,000 local stores by 2025, expand its product portfolio, as well as to develop an all-in-one super app that provides personalised products and services for over five million Vietnamese mothers.
Founded in 2011, Con Cung is a household name in the mother and baby products industry with over 600 fully-owned stores across 45 provinces and cities in Vietnam. The company retails over 2,000 SKUs of mom and baby-care products such as milk powder, diapers, bottled nutrition and vitamins, equipment, and baby fashion products. It holds exclusive distribution rights for a number of international brands, including from Japan, the US, Australia and South Korea, and actively collaborates with leading factories across Asia to develop and manufacture private-label childcare products that are safe, high-quality and affordable.
“While traditional offline trade still occupies an important part of commerce in Vietnam, digitalisation is fast-changing consumer preferences and many Vietnamese mothers are shifting part of their spending towards e-commerce,” said Minh Nguyen, Chairman and Co-founder of Con Cung. “We aim to be the one-stop destination for mothers to fulfil their maternity and baby-care needs in a convenient and safe environment. To do so, we recognise the need to expand our retail channels, both online and offline, and create a holistic ecosystem to support mothers and families. We are fortunate that Quadria Capital shares our vision, and we look forward to tapping into Quadria’s network of leading consumer and healthcare companies to serve more families in Vietnam.”
“The COVID-19 pandemic has shown us just how important it is for us to prioritise health and wellbeing. This makes our mission of empowering healthcare-focused companies even more crucial, especially in serving vulnerable populations such as growing families with infants and young children,” said Ewan Davis, Managing Director of Quadria Capital. “Having easy access to essential healthcare products and services is one such step. We see great potential in Con Cung to address such unmet needs and we have lined up several collaborations to help them penetrate the health and wellness segment, as well as further develop better mother and child-centric products and services.”
Over the last four years, Con Cung has been growing exponentially at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 70 percent. It launched its first app in 2019 in response to an upsurge in mobile-based purchases and succeeded in doubling its store footprint between 2019 and 2021. Con Cung will also launch its first-ever 2,000sqm Super Center at Phu Dong 6 in January this year which will feature all Con Cung products, a coffee shop, an integrated playground area and especially one dedicated floor for infant care, nutrition, OBGYN consulting services provided by leading doctors and healthcare professionals.
“We plan to open one super center per month with a target to reach 200-300 of such stores across Vietnam. While COVID pandemic brought many challenges, we believe it has also presented opportunities for us to transform our store concept to better serve the ever-changing demands of young Vietnamese parents,” said Tien Luu, CEO and Co-Founder of Con Cung.
Besides enabling Con Cung to leverage its complementary network of portfolio companies such as FV Hospital – one of the leading hospital platforms in Vietnam, Quadria Capital is also bringing in a leading global retail expert with deep familiarity with the Vietnam retail scene, Robert Willett. Mr. Willett is the former CEO of Best Buy International and Global Managing Partner of Accenture’s Retail Practice and a member of its executive committee retired. He is currently a strategic adviser, board member and investor of many of the best tech and retail operations around the world and will join the Board of Directors at Con Cung as part of Quadria’s investment.
“The Retail Industry is constantly innovating and evolving, it’s exciting to be a part of this Mum and Baby sector that is always striving to undertake a comprehensive approach to provide care and education to its customers through a personalised customer-centric omni-channel experience which is powered by nimble online – offline expansion strategies and underpinned by AI technologies.
I look forward to supporting the Con Cung team in this exciting era of change and to providing the people of this wonderful country with a world-class proposition,” said Robert Willett, Operating Partner at Quadria Capital.
This investment is the latest in a series of healthcare and consumer health- investments that Quadria Capital has made in Asia just 18 months after the successful closure of its oversubscribed US$595 million Quadria Capital Fund II. In 2021, the firm invested in Encube Ethicals, an India-based leading global manufacturer of topical drugs;Nobel Hygiene, India’s largest private manufacturer of disposable hygiene products; and PT Medikaloka Hermina Tbk (Hermina), one of the largest private hospital groups in Indonesia.
Given the rapid deployment of Fund II, Quadria is making preparations to raise Quadria Capital Fund III to continue its mission of supporting healthcare and consumer-health related companies in the region.
For more information, visit the Quadria Capital website at www.quadriacapital.com or the Con Cung website at www.concung.com.
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About Quadria Capital
Founded in 2012, Quadria Capital is an Asia healthcare-focused private equity firm with assets under management of over US$2.5 billion, maximising returns by investing in the high growth healthcare sector of some of the world’s fastest-growing economies in South Asia and Southeast Asia, including Healthcare Delivery, Life Sciences, Medical Technology and Associated Healthcare Services subsectors. The firm aims to create significant and sustainable shareholder value by supporting strong, professionally run, stable and scalable healthcare organisations to address the critical and undersupplied healthcare needs in Asia. To date, the company has invested in key players in the healthcare industry such as Vietnam-based FV Hospital, Indonesia-based Hermina Hospitals and India-based Encube Ethicals, AKUMs, Nobel Hygiene.
About Con Cung
Founded in 2011, Con Cung the largest retailer of mom and baby products in Vietnam. The company currently operates over 600 stores across 45 provinces and cities in the country and target to open 1,000 stores by end of 2022. With the vision of providing good quality products for Vietnamese children, the company invests in Research and Development (R&D) to manufacture and provide best quality products to the local market at affordable price. All Con Cung products are compliant with strict safety standards.