(L-R) Evo Co-founders Amos Goh, Minghao Teoh, and Roy Ang
Evo, a 5-month-old social commerce startup based in Singapore, announced today the closing of a “seven-digit” seed funding from Hong Kong-based investment holding company Bonjour Holdings, Taiwanese startup accelerator SparkLabs, and Singapore-based VC firm Farquhar Venture Capital.
Clement Chen (Chairman of Bonjour), David Lee (Board Member at Maybank Singapore and former President for Visa Asia Pacific), and Chew Kok Seng (Director at Visa Asia Pacific) also participated in the round.
Also Read: A look at the future of social commerce
The money will be primarily used to double down on product development and engineering, it said in a press release.
Evo was founded in April 2020 by three former employees of Grab — Roy Ang (CEO), Minghao Teoh (COO), and Amos Goh (Product Lead). The trio has extensive experience in building and launching merchant and payment solutions.
The startup has launched a beta version of its social commerce solution that will help influencers and live-streamers to optimise their back-office operations, allowing them to sell more products and scale more quickly.
For merchant and brands looking to engage influencers, the solution will act as a marketing and sales channel.
Currently, Evo is testing its product with marquee live-streamers such as artiste Marcus Chin, as well as Mdada.live, a community run by celebrity hairstylist Addy Lee with artistes Michelle Chia and Pornsak Prajakwit.
Also Read: E-commerce trends: What to expect in 2020
Evo has also onboarded Bonjour and Suki Group as its initial customers.
“We believe that social commerce is the natural evolution of e-commerce in Southeast Asia, where savvy customers are seeking social validation before purchasing,” said CEO Ang.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has also fundamentally changed how consumers make purchases. We saw how the social commerce boom rapidly gave rise to a multi-billion dollar market in China and we think we are headed in that direction. We have received good validation from our beta tests,” he added.
Ang further disclosed that Evo is raising its Series A round within the next six months to scale product development and operations, and expand to two other markets in the region.
“The (Evo) team has immense experience in building and launching merchant and payments solutions at scale within Southeast Asia. This strategic investment fits into our plans as Bonjour Holdings looks to expand into the region,” Chen of Bonjour said.
About the founding team
Prior to starting Evo, Ang worked as Head of Commercial and Operations at Grab Financial Group. As one of the first business development hires for GrabPay, he helped build Grab’s payment infrastructure for the transportation business and launched GrabPay operations in six Southeast Asian markets. He had also worked as General Manager at e27 from 2015-2016.
Also Read: The reality of influencer marketing in the age of digital content
Teoh was previously the Regional Business Development Lead at Grab Financial Group. Prior to that, he was the Head of Business Development for several teams in his seven-year stint at TechInAsia.
Goh helped launch several products at GrabPay, including online acceptance, merchant funded promotions, QR code adoption, among others. Previously, he had stints at several technology companies such as Seedly, Uber, and e27.
The VP of Technology, Leong Kui Lim, has built products and led engineering teams at prominent companies like SP Group, Grab, PayPal, and Yahoo over the past two decades.
—
Image Credit: Evo
The post Ex-Grabbers’ startup Evo raises seed funding to help influencers, live-streamers optimise back-office ops appeared first on e27.