Hungry Hub offers a fixed-price dining service through its app, focussing on a la carte eateries

Thailand-based buffet app Hungry Hub announces that it has raised US$450,000 in funding from Expara and 500 Startups.

With a fixed-price dining app concept, the app’s offering includes exclusive buffet deals and sharing set-menus at restaurants with average per-booking spends of US$80.

This is the first funding that Hungry Hub has received after a period of bootstrapping, claiming to be profitable for the last eight months.

The company said that the seed funding will be used to speed up on the restaurant acquisition process to 1,000 restaurants in an 18 months goal.

In the next 12 months, Hungry Hub is planning to raise a Series A round and to reach international cities as part of the expansion plan.

Also Read: Foodtech in Singapore through the eyes of startups

Hungry Hubs offers mostly deals and set-menus such as All You Can Eat exclusive buffet promotions for restaurants that usually only offer a la carte menus; Party Pack, an exclusive set menus for groups of two to four diners with a minimum of 20 per cent discounts on eateries that do not usually offer discounts; and Buffet Plus, a menu option for Hungry Hub-customers-only that are offered on top of existing buffet promotions. It just added Hungry Lunch, a weekday all-inclusive set lunch options.

“Hungry Hub wants to allow diners to be able to know upfront before entering any restaurant as to how much their food bill is going to come to and for restaurants to drive more revenue through sustainable promotions,” said Hungry Hub Founder & CEO Surasit Sachdev.

According to Sachdev, there has been an untapped potential of group bookings, whether for celebrations or corporate dinners, with budgets that can be controlled whilst ensuring the location, cuisine, and atmosphere are right.

“Customer engagement in food service needs to go beyond the marketing function. Customers are more and more demanding as they have more choices,” Sachdev added.

Also Read: Meet the 100+ startups proving that Asia has the best startup ecosystem in the world

Established in 2014, Hungry Hub first served as an online restaurant reservation app. However, in 2016, the startup pivoted and redefined itself into a fixed-price dining offer app.

“Whereas competitors are focused on discounts, Hungry Hub helps the restaurant to up-sell and increase revenues while also giving them exposure to a large pool of customers, who directly fits their target market with the ability and willingness to pay,” said Anix Lynch from Expara in regards to the decision to invest in the company.

Currently operating in Bangkok and Chiang Mai, Hungry Hub is looking to expand to major cities in Thailand and planning a regional rollout in 2020. The company claimed to have seated more than 430,000 diners to date.

Hungry Hub is the first winner in the Pitch Corner event of The Seedstars World Summit 2018 in Switzerland.

It was also named the top startup in The Pitch competition for the e-commerce category at the Echelon Asia Summit 2018 in Singapore.

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Yangon Capital Partners (YCP), Seed Myanmar, and Nest Tech come back as investors for Flexible Pass’s second funding round

Flexible Pass, Myanmar-based health and fitness app, announces that it has raised a six-digit Pre-Series A funding.

Without revealing the total funding raised, the second funding round was raised from three existing investors from the company’s first funding round: Yangon Capital Partners (YCP), Seed Myanmar, and Nest Tech.

The company said that it will use the funding to expand into the wellness industry by offering services such as spa and beauty services.

It will also develop a new subscription-based B2B product for businesses in the beauty and wellness industry that will be launched by the end of this year.

Flexible Pass currently operates in Yangon, Mandalay, and Pyin Oo Lwin after expanding in March 2019. It claimed to have over 1,000 monthly active users making over 2,500 bookings per month.

Also Read: How recovery training managed to become tech’s latest fitness craze

Through its mobile app, users can create an account, buy Flexible Pass points using a variety of payment options, and start making bookings.

Founded in March 2017 by its Founder and CEO Sully Bholat, Flexible Pass is a pay-as-you-go fitness pass that users can use to make bookings for 20 different fitness activities at over 150 locations across three cities of Myanmar.

Bholat admitted that he “derived” inspiration for the business from US-based fitness class subscription platform ClassPass in the US. When he saw a similar platform, GuavaPass, emerge in Asia, he started work on bringing his own version of it to Myanmar.

Also Read: Burmese fitness platform Flexible Pass has secured funding from Nest Tech

Flexible Pass is a graduate from Founder Institute, the idea-stage accelerator and startup launch programme run through Phandeeyar in Myanmar.

Flexible Pass is also a winner of 2017 Startup of the Year for Myanmar and Best HealthTech Startup of the Year for two years in a row in 2017 and 2018 for Myanmar, all in the ASEAN Rice Bowl Startup Awards.

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Image Credit: unsplash.com/@victorfreitas

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In April, Koku raised US$2 million led by Decent Capital, an investment firm started by Jason Zeng, who had co-founded Tencent

Koku, a Singapore-based fintech startup which provides foreign exchange tech solutions to non-bank financial intermediaries (NBFIs), has announced its plans to expand into Indonesia.

The expansion follows Koku’s US$2 million pre-series A fund-raise earlier this year, which was led by Decent Capital, an investment firm started by Jason Zeng, who had co-founded Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings.

The startup aims to partner with NBFIs including non-bank remittance companies and liquidity providers in Indonesia to provide cheaper, quicker and digital-first remittance services to their customers.

Koku views Indonesia as an increasingly promising market with a high migrant population and increasing inbound and outbound remittance. Through technology, there is immense potential for Indonesia to grow its remittance industry as well as contribute to the growth of the region’s e-payments and money transfer capabilities.

According to the World Bank, Indonesia’s economy has experienced tremendous improvements and growth, partly due to the contributions of its remittance industry. Examples of this growth include double-digit growth of 24.7 per cent in 2018, and a recorded transaction value of US$8.9 billion of foreign exchange by migrant workers in 2017. Indonesia is also considered as one of the top ten largest remittance recipients in Asia in 2018, per the Asian Development Bank’s estimates.

Also Read: QR code-based mobile payments startup QFPay raises US$20M for global expansion

“Indonesia is uniquely fragmented, and for us this presents great opportunity to contribute to the growth of the country’s financial capability as well as the region’s. We offer technology that doesn’t silo growth, but enables our partners to grow to their strengths, whilst at the same time leaving room to collaborate and tap on the strength of others. Koku envisions greater growth opportunities for the industry by leveraging technology to deliver financial inclusion and change the way of life for Indonesians,” said Calvin Goh, Founder and CEO of Koku.

As part of its strategic plans to expand into Indonesia, Koku will move to collaborate with partners, including e-wallet players, micro-lending and payment companies, remittance and money exchange businesses. These partnerships will be centred around the integration of its technology into existing operations.

In addition, Koku is potentially exploring opportunities to partner with local supermarkets and convenience stores, which will act as points of access to financial services, which will help the unbanked community move closers to financial inclusion.

“We’re extremely strategic in the way we approach our growth. Expansion into Indonesia will be very much dependent on engaging with the right partners. We want to ensure that our technology is localised to adhere to cultural needs and business needs,” Goh added.

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In addition to Flat Monthly and Tumblr, we also have updates from Zhihu and Faircent

Singapore’s Flat Monthly raises US$320,000 – Tech In Asia

Singapore-based online property rental platform Flat Monthly has raised US$320,000 in seed funding from Hong Kong’s Terra Capital, Tech In Asia reported.

Flat Monthly operates an online marketplace for landlords, agents, and tenants for condominiums and apartments.

It offers virtual reality tours of its listings, digital signing, and online rental payment services.

Terra Capital stated that investment into the startup will be used to produce immersive content.

Verizon to sell Tumblr to WordPress’s parent company – The WSJ

Verizon Communications Inc. has secured an agreement to sell its blogging site Tumblr to Automattic, owner of popular publishing tool WordPress, The WSJ reported.

Once purchased by Verizon for US$1.1 billion, Automattic will buy Tumblr for an undisclosed sum and take on about 200 of its employees.

Another report by Axios stated that Tumblr was bought for only less than US$10 million.

Also Read: We aim to transform car ownership through our 360-degree approach: Carro Founder Aaron Tan

Chinese Q&A platform Zhihu raises US$434 million – TechCrunch

Chinese Q&A platform Zhihu has raised a US$434 million Series F funding round, TechCrunch wrote.

The funding round was led by video and live-streaming platform Beijing Kuaishou, with participation from Baidu.

Existing investors Tencent and CapitalToday also returned for the round.

Zhihu plans to use the funding to support tech and product development.

In addition to being the company’s biggest funding round since it launched in 2011, it is also one of the largest secured over the past two years by a Chinese internet culture and entertainment company, according to Zhihu’s financial advisor for the funding round, China Renaissance.

India’s Faircent raises funding led by Das Capital & Gunosy Capital – Press Release

Indian P2P lending company Faircent has raised an undisclosed funding round led by Singapore-based Das Capital and Gunosy Capital.

The funding round also saw the participation of existing investors Starharbor Asia Pte Ltd and M&S Partners Pte Ltd (Sin Growth Partner Pte Ltd).

Faircent will utilise the funding to strengthen the platform’s technology, expanding distribution, and adding unique loan offerings for its lenders.

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Image Credit: Andrea Ang on Unsplash

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Key things learnt in wework that makes it work

There is a rising trend of coworking space in Singapore- you could easily find a coworking space in less than 200m apart in Singapore Central Business District, almost like how you would find bubble tea shops in shopping malls. 

Having been working in a coworking space, these are key things I learnt about the phenomenon of WeWork: 

People like flexibility or shorter-term commitment

Office lease term for coworking space is typically a month onwards, as compared to the convention office space whose office lease term is at least 2-3 years. The flexibility in office lease term provides an advantage for companies who need time to stabilise their headcount or to gain a market foothold before getting their own permanent office space. 

Also Read: How coworking is reshaping the workforce

This radical change in office leasing terms is the game-changer for coworking space to strive, at least for startups and growing companies who appreciate the flexibility and prioritise on cashflow.

People like clarity in cost

Nobody likes unpleasant surprises in their bill. There is cost pertaining to office fit-out, office utility and maintenance, should you get your own office space.

Coworking will continue its appeal because of its monthly subscription model. Simple and predictable unless you exceed the allocated credits for meeting room booking or printing.

People like transparency in the process

There is a relative lack of transparency in commercial real estate as compared to coworking space, where pricing is published based on headcount.

Based on my experience, all listed prices, be it on conventional office space or coworking space, are subject to negotiation.

If your requirement is large, you certainly have more negotiation power to bring the terms closer to your favour.

In any case, you need someone professional with local market knowledge to do proper market benchmarking based on your unique set of requirements.

Also Read: The benefits of coworking based on business size

People like instant gratification

The process to move into an office space is faster and more straightforward for the well-furnished and equipped coworking space, as compared to conventional office space, which could likely be in bare or partially fitted condition.

In a coworking shared space, there is a limited way for you to establish your unique corporate identity or showcase your values.

But for convenience sake, coworking space is still preferred and one may simply choose a coworking operator which could resonate closest to their corporate identity.

Also Read: 5 ways coworking can give your business a much-needed boost

Are you in the midst of finding office space? With the various options on a coworking and conventional office space, do you know which ones cost less and works out better for you? Do share your experience in setting your office space below.

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