East Ventures-backed Kaodim brings the curtains down on its local services marketplace

The COVID-19 crisis has claimed another startup victim in Southeast Asia. Kaodim Group, an online marketplace for local and professional services in the region, has announced that it is shutting down its operations.

The prolonged pandemic-induced lockdowns and their knock-on effects in operational disruptions, labour shortages and higher running costs led to this situation. Kaodim considered and exhausted all options before taking the extreme step, its Co-Founder and CEO Choong Fui Yu said in a message on its website.

“So it is with a heavy heart that we announce that from July 1 2022, Kaodim and all its affiliate platforms will no longer be operational,” he said.

Also Read: GoBear shuts down amidst decreased demand for its financial products, services

“Although our recent recovery has been strong, the last 2+ years have been incredibly challenging. The prolonged COVID lockdowns and their “knock-on” effects in the form of operational disruptions, labour shortages and higher running costs (especially on the service provider side) have significantly impacted our business and the quality of service we are able to deliver. More recently, these challenges have compounded further with inflation and rising costs. This has affected customer demand, service provider fulfillment, margins and in turn, our earnings. Ultimately, we feel that we can no longer grow the business meaningfully for the long term, in line with our mission and ambitions,” the CEO added in the message.

Founded in November 2014 by Jeffri Cheong and Choong Fui-Yu, Kaodim operated as an online platform to provide a way to hire hundreds of services — from house cleaning and home renovation to photography. Users were matched instantly to a highly rated service provider at a competitive fixed packaged price.

The firm operated as Kaodim in Malaysia and Singapore, Gawin in the Philippines, and Beres in Indonesia.

In November 2017, Kaodim raised US$7 million in a funding round led by Square Peg Capital and an affiliate of SIG Asia Investment. Previously, it received a US$4 million Series A round led by Venturra Capital, with participation from Beenext, 500 Global and East Ventures in November 2015.

Since the pandemic struck, many high-profile startups in the region have ceased their operations. Among them are Singapore-based Honestbee (grocery delivery), Singtel-owned HungryGoWhere (restaurant reservations), and GoBear (financial products comparison); Indonesia-based Sorabel (fashion e-commerce), Airy (budget hotels aggregator), and Stoqo (food ingredients provider).

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