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Duriana: A new location-based P2P marketplace app from Alps Ventures

Named after the King of Fruits, Duriana will show users products in their immediate vicinity and provide instant communication between sellers and buyers

A new mobile location-based peer-to-peer marketplace app is in town. Named after the King of Fruits in Southeast Asia, Duriana announced its public release today on iOS and Android platforms. Duriana was first founded in October 2013, and jointly started by Alps Ventures, an incubator with offices in Singapore and Vienna, and former Managing Directors of Rocket Internet in Latin America, Camilo Paredes and Amanda Ernst.

Prior to its public release, Duriana had a three-week long beta testing period where it invited sellers to list their items on the platform. While Ernst declined to disclose the number of listings available on the app, she tells e27, “We have now officially launched but we are still working to improve the product and users will see ongoing improvements.” As a mobile-first marketplace, the app will show users products in their immediate vicinity, and provide instant communication between sellers and buyers. Instead of registering directly, users can also log in through Facebook or Twitter.

Competition? What about Carousell?

Ernst says that when they had first started designing Duriana in April, the team was not aware of Carousell, another local peer-to-peer mobile-first marketplace app. She adds, “We know we are still at the beginning and this brings beauty but also challenges. We will focus on quality and niches to break the liquidity challenges of every market and hope to delight our users with the offering we have.”

Meanwhile, Duriana will not be expanding to other geographies soon; Ernst shares that the team believes in focus and will play it one market at a time.