Colombian e-commerce startup Tul, valued at $800M, secures $7.7M in debt financing

Colombian startup Tul, an e-commerce platform that sells construction materials to small-sized retailers, has secured a $7.7 million in debt financing from Bancolombia, to expand its operations.

• Tul was founded in March 2020 and serves as a connection between small construction materials retailers and large suppliers of products such as steel and cement, including Gerdau SA, Henkel, Tigre, Bosch and Cemex.
• The Colombian startup owns storage facilities in some Latin American cities and has a delivery network similar to those of iFood and Rappi, which allows it to deliver construction materials in one day.
• In January, the startup raised a $181 million Series B round, at an $800 million valuation, to expand its operations to Brazil and Mexico. When it raised the financing, the startup said it expected to reach 10,000 customers in Brazil by the end of 2022. It has now raised over $210 million in total funding.
• The startup has about 800 employees and was recently nominated by LinkedIn as one of the top 10 startups in Colombia. When it launched in Ecuador months ago, it faced some setbacks and would be using this latest financing to scale up its operations in the LATAM country.
• Bancolombia believes that Tul’s business model has great significance in Colombia's national economy and projects that the startup has the ability to scale in the long term.