Wedding and motherhood startup Nuren goes live on Crowdo ECF platform

  • ECF campaign has already exceeded target amount by 1.2x
  • Regional expansion into Thailand and the Philippines in 2017
Wedding and motherhood startup Nuren goes live on Crowdo ECF platform

MALAYSIAN wedding and motherhood e-commerce startup Nuren Group has gone live on the Crowdo equity crowdfunding (ECF) platform, aiming to raise RM200,000 (approximately US$48,000 at current rates).
 
Nuren, which operates the Wedding.com.my and Motherhood.com.my portals in Malaysia and nuren.sg in Singapore, had already completed a US$2-million Series A round led by Gobi Partners in March.
 
According to Crowdo cofounder and chief executive officer (CEO) Leo Shimada, Nuren is the second company that is seeking to raise funds on Crowdo.
 
The first was family theme park operator The ParentHood, which had successfully raised RM2.65 million (US$640,000) on the ECF platform in April.
 
“Nuren’s is the first ECF offering in the region to be led by a venture capital (VC) firm, which is Gobi,” Shimada said at the launch of the startup’s campaign on Crowdo in Petaling Jaya earlier this morning (June 3).
 
He also claimed that Crowdo is seeing a quarterly double-digit growth rate in terms of user base.
 
“There are 22,000 members on our platform now, and you will see at least one startup going live on our platform every month,” he declared.
 
Crowdo is one of the six licensed ECF platform operators in Malaysia that provide an alternative funding platform for small businesses and startups.
 
Meanwhile, Nuren founder and CEO Petrina Goh said the group aims to be the leading wedding and motherhood e-commerce marketplace in South-East Asia.
 
“The purpose of this offering is a marketing initiative to convert customers and potential customers into shareholders, as well as to create brand ambassadors for Nuren,”she said.
 
“Through our pre-marketing efforts, we have received overwhelming response from the community where we have already exceeded our target of RM200,000 as of today, about 1.2 times of our base target,” she said at the launch. [Quote corrected, with our apologies]
 
As the ECF offer went live on Crowdo’s platform this morning at 10am, RM246,000 had already been raised – the ceiling is RM300,000. [RM1 = US$0.24]
 
Since it was launched in September 2013, Nuren has been growing at a double-digit rate in terms of revenue and vendor base, Goh claimed.
 
“We are targeting US$1 million revenue for this year, while for 2017 we hope that it will be three times that,” she said.
 
“The funds raised through Crowdo will be used to enhance our product and service offerings, bring on new talents, and improve our e-commerce capabilities,” she added.
 
Goh also said that Nuren will expand into other markets in South-East Asia in 2017, before introducing the home and living category on its platform.
 
“This year, we will focus on our existing markets in Malaysia and Singapore, but we are also looking to expand into Thailand and the Philippines in 2017.
 
“In the next few years, we want to hit at least a 5% share of the US$18-billion market in the wedding and motherhood business in South-East Asia,” she added.
 
Related Stories:
 
From marriage to motherhood, a startup aims to do it all
 
Wedding and motherhood e-commerce startup Nuren lands US$2mil Series A
 
Crowdo launches, unfazed by other ECF platforms
 
 
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