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Today’s top tech news, June 19: SHOPLINE launches in Malaysia, Stripe partners with small business platform Xero

Also, Ohmyhome opens proptech innovations centre, and B Capital invests in Indian scooter rental startups Bounce

Stripe partners with small business platform Xero for payment options [Press Release]

Xero, the small business platform, today announced a partnership with Stripe to develop payment options that help small businesses get paid faster, in more ways, and gain more visibility over their business performance.

The partnership announced at Xerocon San Diego 2019, will see Xero and Stripe building new tools to invoice customers more efficiently, bring additional insights on their business performance, and get paid, in spite of how or where they do business.

The first two options being developed under the new partnership include:

  • A new Stripe feed, designed to bring comprehensive transaction data for all Stripe payments into Xero for easy reconciliation and insights using a cloud accounting platform, whether a small business invoices from the Xero platform or an e-Commerce site, and
  • Auto pay, allowing small businesses to set up and receive recurring payments for repeat billing customers directly through Xero

Craig Walker, Founding CTO & Executive General Manager Platform Business Technologies at Xero said, “We built the Xero platform to help small businesses grow with better tools, smarter insights and comprehensive connections to the information they need to run their business.”

e-Commerce platform SHOPLINE launches in Malaysia [Press Release]

Hong Kong-based SHOPLINE, an e-Commerce platform, announced the expansion of its operations to Malaysia. The news follows the closure of a US$2 million funding round earlier this year, led by CDIB Capital Group and Alibaba Hong Kong Entrepreneurs Fund.

Also Read: Accelerating Asia launches seed-stage accelerator cohort

The startup enables merchants to set-up online stores and offers a wide selection of shop designs, payment gateways, and shipping carriers tailored to the needs of local and cross-border merchants. In 2018, six-year-old SHOPLINE’s merchants reportedly reached over 200 million customers.

SHOPLINE claimed to already have a strong following in its native Hong Kong, along with offices in Taiwan, Ho Chi Minh City, and Shenzhen. The expansion to Kuala Lumpur further ​expand its footprint across the region, offering to include its range of online to offline (O2O) solutions, which enable merchants to connect across channels and optimise the customer’s shopping experience within the coming months

Services will include the SHOPLINE Kiosk, a CRM tool that allows users to sign up for membership with a mobile number or email; the SHOPLINE Broadcast Center, a marketing automation tool enabling merchants to reach customers via Facebook’s chatbot, SMS and email; and Shoplytics, a proprietary analytics dashboard that allows merchants to visualise and analyse data related to their store’s web traffic, revenue, product performance, customers, marketing and promotion campaign performance.

Singapore’s B Capital Group leads investment to scooter rental startup Bounce [The Economic Times]

Singapore-based VC firm B Capital and New York-based hedge fund Falcon Edge Capital, have led Series C investment for US$72 million to Bounce, a scooter rental startups from India. The investment will be used to fund the expansion plan beyond Bengaluru into ten new cities over the coming months.

The Series C investment brings the total equity raised by Bounce to US$92 million so far. Participating in the round were existing investors Accel Partners India, Chiratae Ventures, Omidyar Network, Sequoia Capital, and Qualcomm Ventures, along with Accel Partners US and Mavericks Ventures.

“We plan on adding as many as 100,000 scooters in the next 12-18 months as our focus will be on electric scooters,” said Vivekananda H R, co-founder and CEO of Bounce.

Currently, all of Bounces’ scooters are funded by debt, raised from InnoVen Capital, Flipkart co-founder Sachin Bansal’s firm BAC, and a number of banks. Going forward, Bounce wants to switch over to electric scooters and is looking at a battery-as-a-service model.

Ohmyhome opens proptech innovations centre [Press Release]

Singapore’s property tech startup Ohmyhome announced the opening of the country’s first-ever PropTech (property technology) Innovation Centre today. The 11,000-square-foot facility will be used to accelerate innovation and productivity, as the company expands into other markets in the region.

Also Read: How Malaysia is taking relevant steps to regulate digital assets exchanges

The centre is in Toa Payoh will also double up as the company’s regional headquarters and will have a data and research facility, desks for in-house agents, and a public seminar chamber, where property literacy programmes will be conducted. There are nine zones that include three mains spaces – a Moonshot Room, a Grass Room, and a Happiness Room, catered for different purposes.

Race Wong, COO, and co-founder of Ohmyhome shared, “We hope this center could be a comfortable space for our community of innovators, to execute ideas that will transform the world of real estate.”
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