Former AliExpress exec launches live commerce firm Mobocity

“Live commerce is here to stay and is revolutionizing everything”, says Yan Di, formerly Brazil country manager at AliExpress. After two years at the helm of the online retail platform, in addition to working at Huawei, Baidu and Ant Financial, the executive is now launching a new venture in one of the hottest segments in retail.

Under the live commerce format, products and services are presented in live broadcasts with real-time consumer interaction and purchases, all on the same platform. “Today most brands use live broadcasting events as a marketing channel, rather than sales – but that will change. The trend is to have more and more people buying products directly from broadcasts”, the executive said during an online press conference held this Thursday (26).

In the Chinese market, where the modality debuted in 2016, more than 20% of total online retail revenue in 2021 came from live commerce.

This business potential made the executive leave the management of AliExpress in Brazil to take over Mobocity, a global platform for technology and management of live commerce events. With its own algorithms, the company matches brands to micro-influencers, with real-time data analysis and a hub for broadcasting, managing and engaging multiple simultaneous sessions on different channels.

The foundation of the business emerged 5 years ago with Influu, an influencer marketing agency created by Zhang Zhen. Mobocity was born from the combination of Zhang’s experiences with Yan Di, both considered co-founders of the new venture. Present in Europe, North America, Latin America and China, the company currently serves clients such as Bytedance, Kwai, Tencent and Amazon, as well as Brazilian startups ClickBus and Alice.

Influu has grown consistently since its foundation, going from 15 employees in 2018 to more than 100 staff in 2022. By December, under the Mobocity brand, the expectation is to reach revenue above $15 million, against US$ 1 million generated in 2019.

According to the founders, the partnership with Xiaomi enabled the sale of $500,000 worth of smartphones in 1 hour during an AliExpress live event. “Last year, TikTok surpassed Google as the platform with the highest traffic in the world. Live commerce is already the largest type of content running on that social network in China,” says Yan Di.

The partners’ opinion is that live commerce should not lose strength in the post-pandemic period. “The world as we know it is changing. In the past, live events and short videos were secondary formats, and today they have become the main format on the internet”, Di noted.

For now, Mobocity operates with its own capital, but plans to raise an investment round later this year.

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