Shopback secures US$25mil funding

  • The latest round brings total funding to US$40 million
  • Funds will be used to acquire talent, for product development, entrench presence

 

Shopback secures US$25mil funding

 

ONLINE cashback platform ShopBack has raised US$25 million (RM105.85 million) in its latest funding round, bringing the company’s total funding raised to date close to USD$40million (RM169.37 million).

The round was led by Credit Saison, the largest credit card and retail finance company in Japan. More than 10 institutional investors participated in the round, including new investors Blue Sky and Intouch Holdings PLC, as well as existing investors SoftBank Ventures Korea, Singtel Innov8, Qualgro, East Ventures, and AppWorks.

The three-year-old startup previously disclosed two seed funding rounds totalling over US$1million (RM4.23 million). However, ShopBack declined to disclose the stage of funding for this round.

ShopBack Indonesia country general manager Indra Yonathan tells Digital News Asia (DNA) that the latest round of funding will be used to drive three key areas of development - acquiring world-class talent, investing in product development, and entrenching a base presence in current markets.

He also sees interesting synergies and learning opportunities for ShopBack and its investors.

“Credit Saison has been active in expanding their presence in Asia, with new financing businesses in Vietnam and Indonesia as well as being a limited partner in active Southeast Asia (SEA) funds, such as Beenext, Cyberagent Ventures, Digital Garage, East Ventures, GMO Ventures and GREE Ventures.”

Today, ShopBack powers close to 1,000 orders per hour, with annualised sales figures of over US$300 million (RM1.3 billion) as well as more than 1,300 partner merchants across the online retail, travel, and lifestyle verticals.

Over three and half million consumers across six countries in the Asia Pacific have signed up with ShopBack since the company’s inception in 2014. The startup has a team of over 130 people.

ShopBack believes that rapid and effective localisation is critical for players operating in a fragmented region like the Asia Pacific.

While its core service offering remains the same across geographies, different marketing and product strategies are adopted to better address the needs of customers in each market.

“ShopBack’s business model builds on the explosive growth of e-commerce in the Asia Pacific to drive tangible value for its users and cost-efficient sales generation for its partner merchants,” said SoftBank Ventures Korea partner Sean Lee.

Lee says that the ShopBack team has demonstrated the ability to build a pool of loyal users in a sustainable and scalable manner, which is the backbone of all successful businesses.

“We have high confidence that the team is able to deliver on their vision in the region, hence the follow-on 18 months after our initial investment,” he adds in a statement.

Indra says that ShopBack aims to maintain its business growth through partnerships and user acquisitions.

“We are the leading player in the affiliate marketing space. For partners, we would like to become the marketing channel of choice since it's proven that our platform is an efficient and effective channel.

“For consumers, we are continually exploring elevating ShopBack to become the smarter way to shop in the Asia Pacific which means building vertical products that give value to our users.”

 

Related Stories:

Indonesia is the ‘highest growth’ market for ShopBack

ShopBack claims healthy growth, but wants to step up

ShopBack stays ahead of the game with ‘giant partners’

More Indonesians now shop online but are less satisfied

 

For more technology news and the latest updates, follow us on Facebook,Twitter or LinkedIn.

 
Keyword(s) :
 
Author Name :
 
Download Digerati50 2020-2021 PDF

Digerati50 2020-2021

Get and download a digital copy of Digerati50 2020-2021