In yet another breaking story, Alibaba-backed Paytm Mall is said to be very close to scaling down its B2C consumer business in India

SoftBank, Toyota in talks to invest US$1B in Uber’s self-driving unit: sources [Reuters]

A group of investors led by SoftBank Group Corp and Toyota Motor Corp is in talks to invest $1 billion or more into Uber Technologies’s self-driving vehicle unit, which would value the unit at US$5 billion to US$10 billion, said two people familiar with the talks.

The investment would provide a cash injection for Uber’s self-driving program that is costing the money-losing startup hundreds of millions of dollars without generating revenue.

It could also help underscore Uber’s value as the ride-hailing firm prepares for a stock market debut in which its value could top US$100 billion.

Bruised by cashbacks, Alibaba-backed Paytm Mall takes a call to scale down; shifting focus on B2B [Entrackr]

It seems like cashbacks won’t be the flavour of 2019 after all. Paytm’s e-commerce play Paytm Mall powered massively by cashbacks so far, is very close to scaling down its B2C consumer business.

After a series of internal brainstorming meets and recent discussion between the board members, the company has taken a call to focus on B2B business, said three sources aware of the development.

“Paytm Mall has been failing to find volumes as well as unit economics in the consumer-facing e-commerce segment. Ultimately, its key backers, Alibaba and SoftBank have realised that cashback driven commerce is going nowhere. Now they find no merit in concentrating effort and capital on it,” said two sources on the condition of anonymity.

SC Malaysia reviews 60 proposals for US$245M pooled VC fund [DealStreetAsia]

The Securities Commission (SC) of Malaysia has reviewed about 60 proposals from local and foreign venture capital managers for the RM1 billion ($245 million) venture capital pooled fund that was allocated by state in the 2018 Budget.

“The GLICs (government-linked investment companies) are still reviewing [these proposals]. So, at this stage, we’re still not able to share how much allocation has been done,” said SC Malaysia deputy chief executive Zainal Izlan Zainal Abidin at the launch of SC’s annual report 2018 today at Kuala Lumpur.

Mswipe raises US$32M from existing investors [The Economic Times]

Mumbai-based mobile point-of-sales (PoS) company Mswipe has raised around INR 220 crore (US$32M) in a new round of funding from existing investors — US-based hedge fund Falcon Edge, Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin-promoted B Capital Asia, technology investment firm Epiq Capital and DSG Consumer Partners — according to filings with the Registrar of Companies.

This round came after the company’s Series-D round of funding in 2017, when Ratan Tata promoted UC-RNT infused around INR 200 crore into the company along with participation from its existing investors. Mswipe founder Manish Patel could not be reached for comment.

As per the filing, B Capital Asia and Epiq Capital pumped in around INR 70 crore while Falcon Edge put in nearly 57 crore and DSG Consumer Partners invested Rs 21 crore. The company is in the business of deploying PoS terminals at merchant outlets and processing card transactions for all major card schemes, including Visa, Mastercard, and RuPay.

Adtech startup Scibids opens APAC headquarters in Singapore [press release]

Adtech startup Scibids has opened its Asia Pacific headquarters in Singapore, its first international office. This follows the company’s raising of SGD 3.3 million Series A funding last September.

Rahul Vasudev, former Managing Director of MediaMath (Asia Pacific) and the APAC Head of Digital at MediaCom, will head Scibid’s APAC expansion.

Based in Paris, Scibids has developed an AI-based intelligence layer, which acts as a virtual trader on top of demand-side platforms (DSPs) such as Google’s DV360, The Trade Desk, MediaMath and AppNexus. It sorts through as many as 22 million variables such as geography, gender, site placements and third party data to automatically build thousands of highly granular buying strategies in the DSP.

With these epiphanies at hand, media agencies and marketers who have in-housed programmatic buying can improve their return on ad spend by targeting the right contexts more accurately and optimise towards their own custom business metrics.

The post Today’s top tech news, March 14: SoftBank, Toyota in talks to invest US$1B in Uber’s self-driving unit appeared first on e27.

At the Echelon Asia Summit 2019, you just might find the right corporations to help your startup grow

When it comes to Asia’s startup ecosystem, VCs and CVCs are no longer the only key players helping the community grow. As we move forward, we see that corporates have an increasingly critical role to play in the growth of the ecosystem.

One of the key features of the Echelon Asia Summit 2019 that truly sets it apart is its business matching model. By purchasing a Premier ticket, you automatically qualify for the FORGE Corporate-Startup Business Matching.

In a nutshell, the FORGE Corporate-Startup Business Matching system allows emerging startups to partner with established institutions and large companies in order to achieve optimum growth.

On one end, large companies get to tap young, energetic startups who can help them innovate through digital adoption and harnessing the power of tech, while on the flip side, emerging startups can strike strategic partnership opportunities and access resources that can help them accelerate, and even scale.

This means more than a celebration of ideas, the Echelon Asia Summit 2019 is a platform that bridges startup founders with large companies—in an effort to forge partnerships that are beneficial to both parties.

As such, we are offering an exclusive deal for all interested startups out there: from 14 – 20 March, you can get your Premier ticket at 30% OFF. Simply share this article on Facebook, Twitter, or Linkedin with the hashtag #Echelon2019 and add a one-liner description of your company. Don’t forget to set your post to Public so we’ll be able to track your post.

The Echelon Asia Summit 2019 is happening on 23 – 24 May, at Hall 3A, Singapore Expo, Singapore. Don’t miss the chance to strike important partnerships and take your startup to greater heights!

The post Match made in (startup) heaven? We’ve got you covered appeared first on e27.

CXA Group uses predictive data to help corporates improve their health and wellness offerings for employees

CXA Group, a Singaporean healthtech company, announced today it has raised US$25 million from a host of new strategic investors.

The money will be used to fuel expansion across APAC.

The strategic investors were HSBC, Singtel Innov8, Telkom Indonesia MDI Ventures, Sumitomo Corporation Equity Asia, Muang Thai Fuchsia Ventures, Humanica and Heritas Venture Fund.

According to TechCrunch, there are other strategic investors that are not listed.

CXA is a healthcare company that uses big data to help companies provide personalised health and wellness services to their employees. It has also grown into one of Singapore’s startup success stories, having raised US$25 million from B Capital and EDBI back in February 2017.

It claims to have over 600 enterprise clients that allows them to serve over 400,000 employees in 20 countries.

The choice of targetting investors was not an accident. The hope is that this partnership can be leveraged to integrate CXA services into the B2B offerings for these companies.

“CXA is today the leading health ecosystem platform that enables individuals across Asia to make better choices for healthier living, starting from the workplace, thereby empowering a shift in spend from treatment to prevention. We have seen overwhelming interest from global strategic investors who are excited to work with us to advance our business and vision,” said CEO Rosaline Chow Koo in a statement.

Also Read: Introducing the e27 Telegram Group and Channel!

The company highlighted a statistic that chronic disease hits Asians 10 years earlier than people in the West. Because of that, a one-size-fits-all approach to corporate healthcare is inadequate.

Three separate quotes from Singtel Innov8, HSBC and Heritas all pointed to a platform that allows employers improve their internal healthcare policies as the reason for their investment.

The current round brings CXA’s total fundraising to US$58 million.

Also Read: ‘I feel naked without my phone’ should be a good thing

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Edmicro creates a smart self-learning ecosystem that allows Vietnamese students to learn, practice and master the subjects being taught in classrooms

Edmicro, a Hanoi-based edtech startup that is building a smart self-learning ecosystem for Vietnamese students, has been selected for the March 2019 cohort of GMC Calibrator, a programme run by US-based impact investment firm Gray Matters Capital (GMC).

The selection of Edmicro also marks GMC’s foray into Southeast Asia. It will look at funding high-growth high-impact for-profit enterprises from Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia for its gender lens portfolio – coLABS.

Edmicro will join eight other startups, including Dcoder, InnerHour, Lal10, Matrubharti, Quest Alliance and Skipy (all from India), along with two African startups — Sierra Leone based Mosabi and Kenya’s MumsVillage — for the programme.

Also Read: How edtech is changing the landscape of education in Asia

Founded by Que Nguyen, Dang Bao Linh and Linh Pham, Edmicro aims to create a smart self-learning ecosystem, called Onluyen.vn, for Vietnamese students that adapts to the needs of every learner and allows them to learn, practice and master the subjects being taught in their classrooms.

A cloud-computing platform, it was designed by learning scientists to measure and predict performance and progress in any digital learning product, and uses advanced machine-learning algorithms to analyse learner data and illuminate underlying patterns and relationships.

“75 per cent of Vietnamese students attend extra classes to understand lessons. They lack a good learning tool for complementing classroom learning through self-study. Teachers lack the teaching tools which enable them to record capabilities of each student, and support them in customising the teaching materials to personal student capabilities. Edmicro is filling in this gap,” said Nguyen, CEO and CTO, Edmicro.

“Our participation in the GMC Calibrator will help us in fine-tuning our personalised learning solutions and make our micro learning offerings more effective in improving learning outcomes by analysing learner data better,” he added.

Also Read: Vietnam stars in January as e27 data tracks US$1.5B in deals

“We wish to replicate the success of optimising the performance of India’s leading test-prep solutions such as MadGuy Labs and SarkariPariksha with Edmicro to make it the self-learning platform of choice for students through the GMC Calibrator intervention,” said Omkar Kulkarni, Programme Head, GMC Calibrator.

GMC Calibrator is a digital programme launched in April 2018 with an aim to make the mobile phone a device to promote ‘self learning to earning’ by improving user engagement, monetisation and optimisation of mobile learning platforms. This is done by understanding and implementing the principles of behavioural science and data-driven decision making.

Also Read: This startup could spoil the holiday you obtained by submitting fake medical certificate

“From an engagement point of view, we saw impact on the lines of 30 per cent increase in monthly retention and 20 per cent average increase in revenue across the first cohort we ran from June to December 2018. Three companies of the cohort raised funding during the six-month engagement while two made it to Google Launchpad and Reliance’s Jio GenNext Accelerator. We are confident of calibrating more such success stories with our March 2019 cohort,” Kulkarni noted.

Gray Matters Capital (GMC) is an Atlanta-based impact investor with a gender lens that is on a mission to support “an education leading to a more purposeful life for 100 million women by 2036.” In India, it is focused on making investments in for-profit enterprises providing access to affordable quality education and employability leading to a future job ready workforce with 21st century skills.

Globally, GMC makes sector agnostic investments in for-profit enterprises whose products or services benefit women and girls at scale through its gender lens portfolio coLABS.

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WeWork lets you find your Southeast Asia innovation partner

It’s all about proximity.

Humans are social creatures; we tend to trust people we have close proximity with or those who move in the same social landscape as we do. It’s not being snobbish (though sometimes it is perceived to be) but merely logical — if we know what they’re up to on a daily basis, it’s easier for us to understand them and see how they fit in our lives.

The same can be said for businesses.

Companies tend to collaborate with other companies who move around the same community. How many times have you asked a startup how they ended up collaborating with another company and their answer was somehow related to being aware of the other’s existence because they are part of the same community?

But in today’s world of great connectivity, communities go beyond visual and geographical proximity. So, a more accurate phrase would be: it’s all about community.

Take WeWork, for example.

WeWork prides itself as a builder of community. Not just hundreds of communities in their spaces, but a single global community that acts as a platform for borderless collaboration.

Shared workspaces are a bed of collaboration opportunities

In a typical WeWork location, an enterprise will have over 160 potential companies to collaborate with. That means over 160 companies across different industries that could help an enterprise innovate its product or improve its service, or even create more efficient internal processes.

Hiring platform Wantedly is one such example. With the goal of helping corporates and startups with their hiring needs, Wantedly has had several collaborations simply by being a part of the WeWork community.

“Through the network of WeWork, we were connected with Zilingo,” said Gerald Koh Zong Wei, Business Development at Wantedly. “We were able to form a partnership that resulted in them being part of our recent successful Halloween Hiring Fest that saw over 400 attendees.”

The partnerships that Wantedly formed were not limited just to the companies they share workspace with. They were also invited to join events and work with companies in other WeWork locations.

That is the idea behind shared work spaces that WeWork is cultivating in to a culture; that collaboration is the key to better, quicker innovation, and that your next partner just might be sitting across from you in that communal space.

Communities beyond borders mean more collaboration opportunities

WeWork’s global network of over 400,000 members found in more than 425 locations globally is a massive community. What does this mean? Massive opportunities for collaboration.

Imagine that you’re a large enterprise in Singapore that wants to expand in an emerging market like the Philippines. Who best to help you possibly develop your business or product than someone in the Philippines, who understands the market and business landscape?

And it goes beyond that.

You don’t need to limit it to expansion opportunities. Corporates can develop new products, improve their services, and make their internal processes efficient by collaborating on innovation projects with startups from across the region.

Community is central to innovation. Corporates who want to confront the threat of becoming obsolete can open their innovation strategy to increased exchanges with the ecosystem, beginning with the WeWork network.

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WeWork offers more than just shared workspaces – they create environments that increase productivity, innovation, and collaboration. For enquiries on WeWork membership, visit their website or schedule a visit at a WeWork location near you.

Image credit: 123rf.com / 83598913 / Katarzyna Bialasiewicz

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Much like Uber in the US, Didi and Ola suddenly find themselves losing market share to other companies in their market

Since Lyft publicly released its much anticipated IPO filings on March 1, many pundits have weighed in on its growth rates, heavy losses and future prospects.

There are a number of insights hidden between the lines that we can find from Lyft’s filings.

Here, we dive more deeply beyond Lyft’s financials to delve into the true motivation behind Lyft’s IPO that potential investors should heed, and subsequently lessons for other ride-sharing companies like Uber, Didi Chuxing in China and Ola in India.

IPO to cash out, not to raise capital to compete

Typically, companies list their stocks publicly in order to raise more capital to finance growth.

This in turn creates opportunities for investors, as public companies can use their newly raised funds to execute on projects that can take them to the next level and accelerate their growth.

However, this does not seem to be the true motivation behind Lyft’s IPO. First, Lyft is losing almost a billion dollars every year. In comparison, their financing goal is a mere US$100 million, barely enough to make a difference in their growth plan.

Even by a more conservative measure of operating cash flow (which was about US$280 million in 2018), that extra $100mn of cash won’t be able to make that big of a difference.

What this implies is that the end-goal of this IPO is actually to open a venue for its investors to cash out on their investments.

Although most of Lyft’s significant investors will be “locked-up” and won’t be allowed to sell their shares for 180 days after Lyft’s listing, this is a rather standard practice for most IPOs. It also creates more impetus to pull forward their listing date before their rival Uber raises even more money to compete.

Signal to reach profitability by lowering subsidies?

If our reading of Lyft’s IPO is correct, another important implication is that Lyft might be willing to start lowering its driver and rider subsidies to reach profitability, especially if Uber does the same.

The competitive dynamic in the ride-sharing industry has been that of a typical prisoner’s dilemma. Ride-sharing companies’ primary mode of competition has been subsidizing drivers and riders.

Although they could make profit more easily if they both stopped this strategy, the prospect of losing market share if only one of them stops forces them into a bitter knife fight where both are constantly burning money to compete.

Check out this Decision Matrix for Uber vs Lyft Prisoner’s Dilemma:

In such a scenario, usually the bigger player with more money ends up winning as it is able to outlast its competition.

However, Lyft was able to grow rapidly on the back of Uber’s PR disasters in 2017, evidenced clearly by a massive acceleration in its growth rate in Q1-Q2 of 2017. By leveraging this opportunity, Lyft raised $600 million and grew its market share massively while Uber has been busy with its reorganization for the past year.

However, now that Lyft’s growth rate is slowing and Uber also has had more than a year of restructuring, Lyft’s small financing goal could be a signal to Uber that Lyft is willing to play ball.

Ahead of Uber’s imminent IPO, Lyft is raising a relatively small sum of capital, which means it is willing to be a consistent number two player in North America with substantially less resources. In such a situation, Lyft has an outsized incentive to follow Uber if Uber decides to decrease rider and driver subsidies to make a profit.

Cautionary tale for Didi Chuxing

While a path to profit could a be positive news for both Uber and Lyft, that Uber lost so much market share in the US since 2017 serves as a cautionary tale, especially for Didi Chuxing in China, which is currently going through a similar problem.

After all, just how much value did 15 per cent of market share in the US cost Uber?

After a series of murders of its passengers in 2018, Didi Chuxing has been facing an uphill battle in China in trying to recover consumer’s trust. At the same time, a competitor called DiDa Chuxing has been exploiting this opportunity to grow massively, and has been even outranking Didi in Apple App Store’s download rankings for the past several months.

Also Read: This Singapore healthtech company just raised US$25 million for APAC expansion

If Dida is able to continue this growth and even raise a massive amount of capital to continue doing so, Didi could face a similar consequence as Uber did in the US.

Ola in India: Still not out of the water

The ripple effect of Lyft’s IPO could reach India as well. Unlike China or Southeast Asia, India is the only market that Uber hasn’t yet exited despite having a very strong local rival.

As we’ve written previously, Uber is now the undisputed leader in most of its markets except India. If the competition in the US calms down and Uber finds itself in a much healthier financial situation after its IPO, it could be well positioned to grow more aggressively in India.

Also Read: Singapore-based fintech company Sygnum to build tokenised, smart financial infrastructure

Not only that, the latest news that Uber may sell its India UberEats business in exchange for a stake in Swiggy, a local food delivery company, rather than to Ola (or its investee Foodpanda) may suggest that Uber isn’t ready to quit on India just yet, though the possibility still exists.

The post Game Theory behind Lyft’s IPO: Implications for Uber, Didi and Ola appeared first on e27.

The Singapore-based company has just launched its hostels in Bali and Yangon

Tribe Theory, a hostel startup from Singapore, announced today that it has raised a total of S$1 million (US$739,165) seed funding from Superangel, Aurum Investments, and REAPRA. The company has just launched its physical hostels in Bali and Yangon.

Also Read: This Singapore healthtech company just raised US$25 million for APAC expansion

The company said that the fresh funding will be used to expand their footprints physically, especially in targeted places like Tallinn Estonia, Kuala Lumpur, and the Philippines, launch new business offerings and hires new senior-level team member.

As for the new business offerings, Tribe Theory said that it recently launched Tribe Theory Academy. The academy offers a learning and upskilling concept, which will run its Digital Marketing and Web Development programs at Tribe Theory’s Startup Village in Bali in upcoming May.

The 80 hours-programs will be run by experts within in-person classes alongside creative assignments. People who register will get accommodation in the Startup Village and three healthy meals a day.

“We believe that our concept appeals to the next generation of entrepreneurs and startups. Not just a place to stay, people also want a place where they can meet likeminded people from around the world who are on the same entrepreneurial journey. We provide a place where people can get that, and leave the place feeling empowered as part of our global community,” said Vikram Bharati, Founder of Tribe Theory.

Tribe Theory was founded last year with the focus to bring together the startup community by providing an affordable place to stay with the specific needs of traveling entrepreneurs in mind.

With the approach, Tribe Theory’s spaces combine the communal atmosphere of a hostel with the environment of a co-working space.

The company said that in its first year, it has welcomed over 4,000 entrepreneurs from all parts of the world to its locations in Singapore, Bali, Bangalore, Hong Kong, and Yangon.

Tribe Theory Academy, the mentioned offering of the company, will be rolled out at locations around the world, with the plans to offer these courses on the most sought-after new skills, tailored for entrepreneurs, as a means of networking while upskilling.

Also Read: Silicon Valley customer service company acquires Singaporean startup Collabspot

Tribe Theory aims to be in 25 countries across the globe within the next four year. The next move, it said, would be launching initiatives for talent management and exchange, content creation, professional services, and investments and funding.
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Image Credit: Tribe Theory

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Ecomobi and Jupviec are set to boost Vietnam’s app economy and pitch at Echelon Asia 2019!

2019 is shaping up to be the year the Vietnamese dragon wakes from its slumber. It has been a leader in Southeast Asian investment to begin the year and at the end of 2018 enjoyed a US$50 million round from Topica.

This is why TOP100 was so excited to host a qualifying round hosted in Ho Chi Minh City this week.

After an acute afternoon of pitching and on-the-spot questions, Ecomobi Pte Ltd and Jupviec were crowned as the two Judges’ Choice winners! They have been awarded a fully subsidised booth at e27’s Echelon Asia Summit.

On May 23-24, they will stand a chance to compete for over S$100,000 worth of prizes.

Ecomobi Pte Ltd

Empowered by artificial intelligence and machine learning, the platform promises to revolutionise the way everyone sells online.

Ecomobi seeks help e-commerce companies direct sales towards social networks — a golden goose for many e-commerce brands, marketplaces and traditional companies.

Its unique algorithm allows social influencers to monetize their traffic via limitless access to e-commerce inventories and connect with brands instantaneously, optimising both cost-per-acquisition and revenue.

The transparency in performance tracking also enables both parties to monitor transactions and receive personalised suggestions for performance optimisation.

Its pledge to help businesses increase their sales by at least 30 per cent has attracted big-league partners like Shopee, Lazada and Grab.

Currently, Ecomobi’s market is still spreading across the Southeast Asian market, supporting its patrons to garner a diversity of customers from the enormous cross-border community.

While already in cahoots with more than 100 brands and 30,000 social channels, Ecomobi has its sights set on becoming the leading social selling platform in Southeast Asia, setting themselves apart with their big integrated social channels and technology.

Jupviec

Describing themselves as the ‘uber’ for home services, Jupivec aims to become Vietnam’s top home services platform via a ‘for-women-by-women’ approach.

The app offers quality-controlled services like sofa cleaning and hourly cleaning which can be easily tapped on by its many customers seeking to ‘Marie-Kondo’ their space.

Led by CEO Phan Hong Minh, the team of four works hard to ensure a consistent 67 per cent MoM growth rate.

Presently, their services are used in a slew of offices, restaurants and even Airbnbs across eight different cities.

Besides helping out with hygiene, Jupviec also helps impoverished women retain stable jobs to finance their families. They believe that trust, innovation and professionalism are pivotal in establishing a better (not just in terms of hygiene) place for all.

Also Read: Enterprise Singapore sponsors S$100,000 worth of prizes for TOP100!

The qualifiers

Besides the two Judges’ Choices winners, another 10 startups managed to qualify for a partially discounted booth at the same venue. Although they might not have received the regional victory, they still stand a chance at winning the grand prize!

Here they are:

1. Papaya Insurtech
2. KAMEREO
3. 689Cloud, Inc.
4. Buymed Pte. Ltd
5. Compliy
6. GODY.VN
7. AquaGrowGreens
8. Phleek
9. Ferosh
10. Dench Labs

A hearty congratulations to the two Judge’s Choices awardees and the 10 qualifiers! Look out for e27’s next TOP100 event at Hanoi.

Also Read: Singapore TOP100 winners show why Southeast Asian startup scene is the world’s best

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Whatfix helps companies deliver modern on-boarding, training and self-service support to users through contextual content displayed at the time of need

Whatfix, a digital adoption platform that helps companies deliver modern on-boarding, training and self-service support to users through contextual content displayed at the time of need, has raised US$12.5 million in Series B funding led by Eight Roads Ventures India.

US-based F-Prime Capital and Cisco Investments, besides existing investors Stellaris Venture Partners and Helion Venture Partners also participated in this round.

Bangalore-based Whatfix plans to use the capital to continue its expansion into the global markets. It will also grow the R&D, marketing, and sales teams in the US and India.

Launched in 2013 by Khadim Batti and Vara Kumar, Whatfix aims to disrupt the way application support and training is delivered to end-users of enterprise applications by providing contextual and real-time guidance. It also allows businesses and individuals to create support for frequently-asked questions (FAQs), training material and interactive tutorials, which can be integrated across all user touch-points inside web applications.

Also Read: This startup could spoil the holiday you obtained by submitting fake medical certificate

The startup aims to solve three critical needs of a business — onboard users to increase conversions and engagement, provide better support to reduce churn, and effective training for employees and customers.

Southeast Asia’s leading e-commerce company Lazada is one of its customers.

“Whatfix is one of the leading vendors of choice for enterprises that are looking at driving digital adoption across all their enterprise software applications (EASs) seamlessly. Soon, there will be widespread automation with AI and machine learning changing the way we work. However, employees will need digital expertise to leverage these technologies to effectively elevate productivity,” Co-founder and CEO Khadim Batti said.​ “​Whatfix is already the simplest and the most effective platform for delivering an engaging and superior employee experience.”

“Accelerating user adoption is a key element of customer experience management, a focus area for Cisco. Whatfix is helping lead a market shift to a new, data-driven approach to user adoption. The Whatfix team is an example of the significant enterprise-tech talent in India, and we are excited to support them in their global journey,” said Sameer Garde, President India and SAARC at Cisco.

In April 2017, Whatfix raised US$3.7 million in Series A, led by Stellaris, with participation from Helion and Powerhouse Ventures. Prior to this, the startup had raised under US$900,000 in seed funding from Helion, preceded by a US$300,000 from Hanwha Group. 

As per Whatfix’s estimates, the digital adoption for enterprise application software is a US$8 billion market and is growing rapidly.

The post Digital adoption platform for enterprises Whatfix raises US$12.5M in Series B appeared first on e27.

The city is predicted to see a compound annual growth rate of 7.4 per cent from 2019-2023 for the e-commerce industry

Hong Kong is a city known for its fast-paced lifestyle, upscale fashion and shop-til-you-drop lifestyle. The e-commerce industry is no different.

E-commerce plays a very important role in the economy of Hong Kong (HK). Statista expects local e-commerce revenue of around US$4.8 billion in 2019.

The same report states that the revenue is expected to show an annual growth rate (CAGR 2019-2023) of 7.4 per cent, resulting in a market volume of US$6.4 billion by 2023. This indicates an incredible potential in the e-commerce sector in Hong Kong for the next four years.

To find out who are the top e-commerce players in Hong Kong, iPrice recently conducted a market analysis utilising data such as the average total visits (desktop and mobile web) and mobile application rankings (both iOS App Store and Google Play Store).

Top 10 e-commerce platforms in Hong Kong as of Q4 2018

 

 

Total average visits (desktop and mobile web) as of Q4 2018.

To ensure a fair analysis and comparison, our report focuses on e-commerce companies based in Hong Kong, international companies with an official Hong Kong specific domain and selected international platforms that are most popularly used among consumers in Hong Kong.

In Q4 2018, Tmall takes the lead with an average of 7.9 million total monthly visits (desktop and mobile web) compared to DC Fever (5.6 million) and HKTV Mall (4.4 million).

Tmall.hk’s parent company, Alibaba invested heavily in marketing the Singles’ Day sales, this would explain the flare in November 2018 with a whopping 10.1 million total visits (desktop and mobile web) in that month alone.

However, in December 2018 Tmall experienced a drop of total visits by 3.9 million which could indicate that Christmas Sales is not as big compared to the Singles’ Day sales.

Both DC Fever and HKTV Mall displayed the same pattern as Tmall in November compared to December. However, e-commerce platforms are expected to rebound in January 2019 in conjunction with the pre-Chinese New Year festivities. DC Fever and HKTV Mall experienced a 10 per cent increase in total visits in January 2019.

Popular Foreign E-commerce Platforms in Hong Kong

 

 

Estimated total visits (desktop and mobile web) from Hong Kong in January 2019.

Hong Kong consumers are avid shoppers at international e-commerce platforms as well.

Among the most visited international e-commerce platforms are China-based websites Taobao and JD. As of January 2019, Taobao has over 601 million in total worldwide visits (desktop and mobile web) and 3.98 per cent of visitors were from Hong Kong.

This equivalent to 23.95 million visits from Hong Kong in January 2019, which has a population of 7.5 million as of 2019. In that same month, the top five e-commerce platforms in Hong Kong, notably JD.com (5.2 million), Tmall (7.9 million), DC Fever (4.2 million) and HKTV Mall (4.5 million), garnered lesser total visits as compared to the e-commerce platform by Alibaba.

This indicates that Taobao is the most visited e-commerce platform in Hong Kong from the estimation based on SimilarWeb’s data.

According to the South China Morning Post, Hong Kong is now a battlefield for China’s Singles’ Day sales. Alibaba, the parent company of Taobao and Tmall, was the first to popularise the Singles’ Day sales, enjoyed record-breaking US$ 18.26 billion within just 24 hours. Just last year, JD.com had followed the move made by Alibaba Group and had launched their first Singles’ Day sales in 2018.

Jake Yu, head of supply chain from JD.com, said

“Hong Kong consumers are very picky and have an international mindset. If we can win them over, we can win the rest of the world over.”

Within the Singles’ Day sales period which takes place in November, JD.com customers were rewarded with free shipping for shopping on their website and coupons for those new to the online platform. This could explain the rising popularity of JD.com in Hong Kong in recent times and they are most likely to remain as one of the most visited e-commerce platforms in the country.

Top Mobile Shopping Apps in Hong Kong

On the other hand, consumers purchasing behaviour on desktops and mobile phones are very different. This is evident as studies such as the one conducted by KPMG in 2017 shows that mobile strategies had doubled payment transactions compared to 2016.

Therefore, it is vital to analyse the highest-ranking mobile shopping applications to ascertain the top e-commerce players in Hong Kong. This analysis was done by averaging the rankings of the top mobile shopping applications on both Google Play Store and iOS App Store. We ranked the applications according to the highest average rank recorded between 19 November 2018 and 11 February 2019.

 

All applications were ranked according to the highest average rank recorded between 19 November 2018 and 11 February 2019. Data were obtained via AppAnnie.

From our analysis, Taobao is strong in the lead for both their website and applications on both app stores (Google Play Store and iOS App Store). This reaffirms Taobao’s market-leading position in Hong Kong as they are also the most visited (on desktop and mobile web) e-commerce platform according to our estimates.

Supporting this claim is KPMG, who confirms that Taobao has been leading the market since 2017 and 45 per cent of online consumers tend to make purchases on the platform owned by Alibaba.

Our analysis also indicates that Hong Kong consumers have an affinity towards fashion specific applications such as Zalora, ASOS, and Farfetch. This aligns with the survey by KPMG in 2017, where 62 per cent more likely to purchase fashion products online. Amazon remains as one of the top shopping apps in HK as of Q4 2018 in both app stores. In our analysis, the American-based mobile app is more popular on Android as compared to Apple mobile devices.

Predictions for 2019 and Beyond

Given that Taobao is currently leading the e-commerce platform according to our estimates in January 2019, it is likely to see as a continuing trend in the remaining months (February and March) of Q1 2019.

Solidifying Alibaba’s leading position in HK would be Tmall as well. This is evident as Tmall garnered more than 10 million in total visits (desktop and mobile web) in January 2019 while DC Fever obtained 4.2 million total visits (desktop and mobile web) in the same month.

In the long run, it is very possible to see the prominence of either new or mid-field e-commerce players taking over the leading spots.

There is great untapped potential in the Hong Kong e-commerce sector. As stated by Statista, e-commerce revenues are expected to push up to US$6.4 billion by 2023. Moreover, given that the 11.11 sales are still relatively new and increasing rapidly in popularity and demand, this would encourage further participation from new and emerging e-commerce players to gain a big piece of the action.

Methodology

• Data was collected as of February 2019.
• All data on the total visits on desktop and mobile web in this study were taken from global traffic figures from the respective websites except for Taobao and JD.com. Estimates on total visits from desktop and mobile web on Taobao and JD.com from Hong Kong were based on data by SimilarWeb. Insights based on SimilarWeb data.
• App Ranking – Average ranking of mobile app 19th November 2018 – 11th February 2019. Source: AppAnnie.
• The following industries were not included in our analysis: e-ticketing, financial services, rental services, insurance, delivery service, food & beverage, meta-search, couponing, cashback websites and e-commerce platforms who solely provides classified ads/P2P services. E-commerce companies who initiated their business as a physical store were not included in our analysis.

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iPrice Group is a meta-search website operating in Hong Kong and in six countries across South East Asia namely in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, and Vietnam. Currently, iPrice compares and catalogues more than 500 million products and receives more than 15 million monthly visits across the region. iPrice operates three business lines: price comparison for electronics and health & beauty; product discovery for fashion and home & living; and coupons across all verticals.

On a regular basis, iPrice Group releases industry insights on topics pertaining to e-commerce, the tech industry, and startups. Stay tuned to iPrice’s insights here: https://iprice.hk/trends/insights/

Photo by SHUJA ZED on Unsplash

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