Yeahka Limited (Yeahka or the Company) (09923.HK) founder and CEO, Luke Liu, sent an open letter to all employees via email, looking back on the 10-year history of the company and announcing its future development plan on January 3.
In the email titled “Toward a More Promising Future”, Luke looked back on Yeahka’s transformation over the past 10 years since its inception, sharing how the Company grew from payment focused business to a comprehensive 2B business solution provider with extended product offerings including SaaS, Fintech, and other; subsequently evolved to an ecosystem with recently added In-store E-commerce business that covers both 2B and 2C markets; finally successfully transformed into a “payment-based digital commerce ecosystem”. Till now, Yeahka serves nearly 7 million active merchants, with its service covering over 800 million consumers and generates nearly 100 million daily payment transactions within its ecosystem.
To prepare for the increasing complexity and uncertainty of macro environment, Luke outlined Yeahka’s future development blueprint in his letter, which is “upholding value creation principle, establishing strategic certainty and implementation certainty”. He said that the Company’s positioning and overall big picture strategy is getting clear and the Company’s next steps will be the refinement of sub-strategy in the future. He also added that the strategy execution will be realized by strengthening corporate management, optimizing organizational mechanism, cultivating talents and leveraging scientific management methodologies.
In relation to the Company’s recent focus on the In-store E-commerce business, Luke reiterated his confidence in Yeahka’s entry into the local lifestyle market. According to Yeahka’s 2021 interim report, the Company has served more than 10,000 merchants with its in-store e-commerce services, with over 1.42 million paying consumers and a GMV exceeding RMB71 million. In order to further strengthen its capabilities in local lifestyle services, the Company invested RMB100 million for 60% equity of Dingding Cultural Tourism (Chengdu) Co., Ltd., expanding the scope of the Company’s in-store e-commerce business.
Full text of the 10th Anniversary Letter from Luke Liu, the founder and CEO of Yeahka
Title: Yeahka’s 10th Anniversary Letter – Toward a More Promising Future
Happy New Year, colleagues of Yeahka!
In today’s world where uncertainty has become a challenge, we need to keep reflecting ourself both in work and life. Thinking about the many moving pieces of the Company’s businesses and what is happening with life, I want to take the opportunity to review the path we have all travelled together at this meaningful point in time, and to discuss how we should develop as a company going forward.
On this day 10 years ago, I moved to 1802 Chang Hong Building, filled with anticipation for starting the offline payment business.
In the following five years, my colleagues and I explored possibilities of various products in the offline payment space. However, the product/market fit was less than optimal, so we could only rely on the venture capital investments and hang on to our firm belief, that immerse opportunities lie in the offline payment space, to survive with strong will.
In 2015, we set company strategy to be a “cloud platform for offline merchants”, and chose the development direction of the Company to move “beyond payment”. So we started the Smart Shopkeeper SaaS and fintech businesses. Looking back, these were very forward looking positioning and planning, way ahead of its time.
In 2017, we foresaw that mobile payment would change people’s lives, and started to invest into QR code payment early on. We strongly believed that if we dedicate ourselves to each and every single payment transaction, we could accumulate massive merchant and user base, traffic, channels, bring more value to merchants, and develop our comprehensive technology services.
In 2020, we officially positioned Yeahka as a payment-based technology company, successfully listed the Company on HKEX, and became a high-profile IPO stock in the Hong Kong capital market. Ever since our listing 18 months ago, we have been thinking: where is Yeahka’s next peak summit?
Currently, although we have experienced the global pandemic for the last two years, and are facing the greatest changes in the century, we still firmly believe that the nearly 7 million active merchants and over 800 million consumers we serve, the nearly 100 million daily payment transactions we support, the flow of capital and information among different entities, and rich portfolio of value-added services will create the foundation for a payment-based digital commerce ecosystem, same as the exchange of matter and energy to create a natural ecosystem.
Recently, we entered into the trillion dollar “local lifestyle” market in a big way, leap frogging from payment pureplay to providing enhancement of 2B business efficiency and financial performance, and subsequently to elevating the broader 2C consumer experience. Our chosen path has derived from mature and long-term business thinking, our drive comes from our innovative and assertive company value and genes, as well as our mission to consistently create value for merchants and consumers.
10 years is enough for a toddler to become a teenager, but for a startup company, 10 years is only long enough for us to go from survival to just starting growth. Perhaps Yeahka does not yet have a revolutionary product to change the world, but we have the resilience, the long-term and forward-looking ways of thinking, and the capabilities to grasp industry opportunities, which are most-needed for an entrepreneurial company like Yeahka. The qualities we possess make us confident about our future, and keep us as curious and excited as we were 10 years ago.
How do we deal with the complexity and uncertainty in the environment and still maintain our leading position? I believe the goal will be achieved primarily by upholding value creation principle, establishing strategic certainty and implementation certainty.
On strategic certainty front, through 10 years of continuous exploration, we have developed a proprietary “clover” model to analyze and measure the user value of our business, to assess our competitive advantage and economic moat, and to accumulate long-term company value. After 10 years of shaping and reshaping, the Company’s positioning and overall big-picture strategy has become crystal clear, and the Company’s next steps will be the refinement of sub-strategy in the future.
On implementation certainty front, we need to focus on management. Firstly, the robustness of the Company’s organizational capability and the vitality of the corporate culture is the source of management power. It takes people with similar values to run a business. We ought to optimize our organizational mechanism to train and nurture talents. Also, we need to achieve goals by adopting scientific methodologies, identifying the core essence and key process points of issues, dissecting tasks from top down, and simplifying complicated matters. We will become very efficient on problem solving by adopting the above-mentioned practices.
In the past 10 years, we have gone through ups and downs, tears and joys through our journey of entrepreneurship. But for every enterprise to achieve its goals, this is a necessary experience. The experience is just like the youth we have all experienced. It is filled with contradiction and uncertainty, and there is absolutely no need to be overly joyful or depressed, as I believe the journey itself is actually the most wonderful part.
As long as we stand by our beliefs of creating value for users and society, we will be able to smile honestly and advance down the right path.
Let us march forward towards the promising future.
Luke
Jan 2022
About YEAHKA LIMITED (Stock Code: 9923.HK)
Yeahka is a leading payment-based technology platform dedicated to creating value for merchants and consumers. According to Oliver Wyman, Yeahka is the second largest non-bank independent QR code payment service provider in China in terms of transaction count in 2019, with a market share of 14.0%. Yeahka’s vision is to build a commercial digitalized ecosystem to enable seamless, convenient and reliable payment transactions among merchants and consumers , and to further provide a rich portfolio of diversified technology-enabled business services, including SaaS digital solutions, which help customers improve their operating efficiency; precision marketing services, which allow customers to effectively reach their target markets; fintech services, which satisfy customers’ diversified financing needs; and in-store e-commerce services, which helps merchants to increase sales and consumers to enjoy local lifestyle discount benefits.
Category: Cards/Payments
Regional Insurtech Igloo extends footprint in Malaysia with Pine Labs partnership and appointment of Country Head
- Igloo signs key partnership with Pine Labs to offer affordable Phone Screen Protection and Mobile 360 protection to its platform users
- Newly-appointed industry veteran, Amitabh Singh, to lead growth in Malaysia
- Igloo to expand team in Malaysia, making key hires across Business Development, Operations, Customer Service & Sales Management
Regional insurtech firm Igloo today announced a new partnership with digital payments service provider, Pine Labs, marking the extension of its regional footprint in Malaysia. Pine Labs is currently used by over 246,000 merchants in 3700 cities and towns across India and Malaysia. The partnership comes on the heels of its appointment of Amitabh Singh as Country Manager, Malaysia.
Through the partnership, Pine Labs will offer shoppers hassle-free and easy mobile phone protection solutions under the IglooCare Program. Mobile Phone 360 and Phone Screen Protection are currently available on Pine Labs’ platform. The protection covers both repair and replacement of the gadget by up to 100% of the gadget retail price, offered through Igloo’s dedicated nationwide IglooCare repair and service network in Malaysia.
Meanwhile, as part of Igloo’s plan to extend its presence in Malaysia, the company appointedAmitabh Singh, as Country Manager for Igloo, Malaysia. He will be responsible for Igloo’s overall country operations across business development, partnerships, marketing and operations. With nearly two decades of experience in financial services, he has held several leadership roles across Southeast Asia.
In addition, Igloo is expanding its team in Malaysia and making key hires across Business Development, Operations, Customer service & Sales management.
According to Amitabh, the partnership marks a significant milestone in Igloo’s expansion in Malaysia. “We are happy to partner with Pine Labs to offer our best-in-class IglooCare phone protection solutions. Igloo aims to work with more local partners to provide protection platform solutions that are easy to purchase, affordable, and directly impact consumers’ daily lives. These lifestyle-focused solutions allow consumers to experience minimal disruption and financial loss to their daily lives – across multiple categories including Electronics & Durables, Health Benefits products, Lifestyle coverage and SME solutions – all of which are enabled through our technology platform,” he added.
“Pine Labs has been at the forefront of technology in the payments solutions space across India and Southeast Asia. In Malaysia we are expanding our footprint rapidly by entering into strategic alliances with leading banks and retail brands. We are very happy to be partnering with technology platform like Igloo to enable us to expand protection offerings to our merchants. At Pine Labs, we are always striving to get the best products and services for our merchant partners and we find Igloo provides us the best platform in terms of options and roll out flexibility,” said Chayan Hazra, Head of Payment Business – APAC for Pine Labs.
This year, Igloo has established over 30 key partnerships in diverse industries to make protection products more accessible across the region. In July, the insurtech company partnered with regional leading food delivery platformfoodpanda Singapore to launch protection solutions for gig economy workers. In September, Igloo successfully launched partnerships with leading e-Wallet platforms in the PhilippinesGCash andDANA in Indonesia to provide online shopping protection (PH) and phone screen protection (ID) respectively. Last month, Igloo partnered its first Digital Health brand, HD, to provide health-related micro-insurance products via the HDmall healthcare marketplace platform in Thailand. The company also boasts several award wins this year, namely “Most Innovative InsurTech Company”, “2021 Inclusive Fintech 50” and “Insurtech Initiative of the Year – Singapore”.
Amitabh Singh’s profile can be found here.
About Igloo
Igloo, previously known as “Axinan”, is the first full-stack insurtech firm to emerge from Singapore. It has offices in Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, and Vietnam, and tech centres are located in China. With a mission of making insurance accessible for all, the firm leverages big data, real-time risk assessment, and end-to-end automated claims management to create B2B2C insurance solutions for platform companies and insurance companies. Igloo’s insurance solutions enable companies to eliminate their exposure to operational risk, create new revenue streams, and optimize and enhance existing products and services. In April 2020, Igloo successfully closed its Series A+ funding round worth US$8.2 million, bringing its total funding to US$16 million from global investors.
Igloo is led by a core team that comprises top talent from the technology and insurance industries hailing from global corporations including Facebook, Grab, Flipkart, Garena, Manulife, Shopee, Yahoo! and Zalora. For more information, please visit https://www.iglooinsure.com
About Pine Labs
A leading merchant commerce platform, Pine Labs serves prominent large, mid-sized and small merchants across India and Southeast Asia. The company’s unique cloud-based platform enables it to offer a wide range of payment acceptance and merchant commerce solutions including enterprise automation systems such as inventory management and customer relationship management. Its stored value platform includes issuing, processing, and distributing digital gift cards for corporate customers around the world. In April 2021, Pine Labs acquired Fave, a consumer fintech platform that provides a smart payment app to the smart generation of consumers looking to pay and save. Fave is currently operational in 35 cities across Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia and is also available in India. Incorporated in Singapore, Pine Labs’ key investors include Sequoia India, Actis Capital, Temasek, PayPal and Mastercard. To know more, please visit www.pinelabs.my
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Netcetera distinguished as overall DX Award 2021 champion at the Business Excellence Awards: Final Award Night
- DX Award 2021 culminated with the Business Excellence Awards: Final Award Night, where Netcetera emerged as the overall winner.
- E. Fabrice Filliez, Ambassador of Switzerland, and Georg von Wattenwyl, Chairman & Co Host at SwissCham, among the guests of honour at DX Award 2021
- DX Award 2021 received 45 submissions across eight subcategories, with 22 projects showcased at the virtual pitching nights.
Leading digital payment solutions provider Netcetera has bested 44 other companies at the culmination of the Digital Transformation (DX) Award 2021 organised by the Swiss Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SwissCham) in Singapore, in collaboration with Deloitte, and supported by PRecious Communications and other partners. Netcetera has demonstrated business agility in payment services through its 3-D Secure (3DS) solution suite, which offers end-to-end integrated authentication.
“The DX Award 2021 has evolved to become a great avenue for celebrating innovation and entrepreneurship in the ASEAN region since it was introduced last year. This year, we received 45 submissions from across the region, all of which were outstanding in their own right,” said Andreas Enderlin, Chairman of the Digital Transformation Award and Managing Partner of Hugo Capital Partners. “We would like to extend our congratulations to Netcetera and all the finalists for the different subcategories, and we hope to continue inspiring and empowering more companies in the digital new normal through this initiative.”
The DX Award 2021 featured eight subcategories this year: Cybersecurity; Financial Services; Advanced Manufacturing; Healthcare; Insurance; Building & infrastructure; B2C; and Business Services. Among the pool of 45 submissions, 22 projects were selected and showcased at the recent virtual subcategory pitching nights. Shortlisted participants presented their projects in front of a highly distinguished jury, peers, and selected guests during the online live pitching sessions held across three nights. The projects were evaluated based on clearly defined benchmarks (from Deloitte’s Digital Maturity Model) — Customer; Strategy; Technology; Operations; and Organisation & Culture — as well as the public’s votes.
SaladStop! x ADA (B2C), EyRis (Healthcare), IDV CONCEPTS ASIA (Advanced Manufacturing), Speedwork Autocare Indonesia (Business Services), Netcetera (Cybersecurity), Siemens (Building & infrastructure), Allianz (Insurance), and BIZZI (Financial Services) emerged as the finalists for the respective subcategories at the Business Excellence Awards: Final Award Night. They were pitted against each other during the final ceremony, where Netcetera emerged as the overall winner of the Digital Transformation Award.
“In response to business challenges brought about by the pandemic, Netcetera was inspired to develop an end-to-end product based on EMV® 3DS[1] and the SAFe business agility framework to drive enhanced business agility, while allowing customers to adopt new product specs and compliance requirements faster than ever before,” said Dr. Thomas Fromherz, Fellow, Netcetera.
Hanspeter Jsler, Key Account Manager at Netcetera’s Singapore office added: “We are greatly humbled to have won DX Award 2021, and this is just a testament of Netcetera’s continuous commitment towards the pursuit of business innovation.”
DX Award 2021 is sponsored by industry leaders Acronis, DSV, Entsia, Inventa Technologies, SIX group, and Zuhlke, and supported by Singapore government agencies, American and European Chambers.
Last year, SwissCham received 43 DX Award applications from startups, SMEs and MNCs from various sectors.
[1] EMV® is a registered trademark in the U.S. and other countries and an unregistered trademark elsewhere. The EMV trademark is owned by EMVCo, LLC.
About SwissCham Singapore
Founded on 3 October 1988, SwissCham Singapore is one of the pillars of the Swiss community in Singapore. It brings together the representatives of Swiss companies, encouraging networking, exchange of information and championing the establishment of Swiss values and quality through business.
Today, the Chamber continues serving its members with its objectives: fostering the Swiss business community, providing a platform for exchange and business opportunities, and staying relevant for partners and members. This year, the Chamber has strengthened and expanded its network, with 219 members.
About Deloitte
Deloitte is a leading global provider of audit and assurance, consulting, financial advisory, risk advisory, tax, and related services. With more than 175 years of history, our organisation has grown tremendously in both scale and capabilities. Deloitte currently has approximately 330,000 people in more than 150 countries and territories, and serves four out of five Fortune Global 500® companies. Yet, our shared culture and mission — to make an impact that matters — remains unchanged. This is evident not only in Deloitte’s work for clients, but also in our WorldClass ambition, our WorldClimate initiative and our ALL IN diversity and inclusion strategy.
KPay serves more than 8,000 merchants in its first year of business
Established in Hong Kong at the end of 2020, fintech start-up KPay has broken the industry record among local comprehensive payment solution service providers in just one year by providing more than 8,000 local small and medium merchants with comprehensive and advanced offline payment and settlement services. With its business growing tremendously, the company has been invited to be one of the main sponsors of this year’s “Winter Wonderland” and to become the designated electronic payment provider for this large-scale event.
Smart POS terminals are widely used, allowing merchants to make smooth transactions
KPay supports a variety of payment methods, including scanning or displaying a QR Code, tapping or inserting a card, and contactless NFC. The payment services provided by KPay include terminals and settlement platforms, all of which have obtained the relevant certifications and are subject to the relevant regulatory authorities, including the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, EMV certification, Visa payWave, Mastercard PayPass certification and UnionPay card acceptance terminal certification, enabling merchants and consumers to complete transactions with peace of mind.
In addition, the one-stop KPay smart POS terminal can receive up to 12 major payment channels, including Visa, Mastercard, UnionPay, JCB, AlipayHK, Alipay, WeChat Pay (Hong Kong and China Wallets), Cloud Quick Pass, Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay. It has been advancing alongside small and medium-sized merchants in the era of electronic payment, and provides a resolution to the cumbersome payment and settlement processes of the past with its professional and reliable services.
Moreover, the KPay smart POS terminal allows merchants to process transactions with a SIM card or indoor WIFI connection according to their needs. It, therefore, does not require a fixed location, so merchants can enjoy greater flexibility in their store layout and smoother payment experiences.
Business results outperform industry peers in less than a year in business
KPay currently has a broad customer base drawn from the catering, retail, medical and service industries. The company also has an accomplished and experienced customer service and sales team, providing customers with prompt and accurate local after-sales services, including installation, technical support and training, so that merchants can focus on business development and explore more business opportunities with peace of mind.
Mr. Daniel Cheung, Co-founder of KPay, said, “KPay’s electronic payment service was launched into the market less than a year ago. Since then, we have attracted more than 8,000 small and medium-sized enterprises and merchants by riding on the consumption fever sparked by the consumption voucher scheme. KPay understands the needs of customers for one-stop payment solutions. With a strong and solid product and business development team and technical support, diversified payment solutions, data security and efficient transaction management, KPay ensures that its customers payment collection process is smooth and easy, allowing them to achieve profit goals more effectively.”
Given its technological advantages, KPay has become one of the major sponsors of this year’s winter carnival in Hong Kong – “Winter Wonderland” (URL: winterwonderland.hk), providing electronic payment services for the merchants and game booths participating in the event, so that visitors can use credit cards or e-wallets to play games and make purchases at the venue. KPay will also distribute event tickets through its Facebook page. For details, please visit https://www.facebook.com/kpaygroup/.
Explore new markets and develop more innovative and convenient trading functions
Looking ahead, KPay will continue to focus on serving the Hong Kong market while also realizing its potential in the Asia-Pacific region. Guided by the three principles of “Pay it Easy”, “Pay it Smart” and “Pay it Swift”, the company will develop and launch more online payment solutions and add more innovative functions that provide greater convenience to merchants. These will include diversified SaaS products such as catering pre-orders, inventory management software and membership management systems, with the overall aim of creating a quality business environment for all industries and business sizes.
About KPay
KPay is a financial technology (fintech) company focusing on integrated business solutions. It uses professional and innovative products to enhance the market competitiveness of medium, small and micro enterprises.
KPay’s business covers online and offline fintech services, including electronic payment platforms and products boasting high levels of customer loyalty. With a professional technical development team, the company strives to improve the functionality of merchants’ products based on their needs, so as to help maximize their profits. KPay keeps abreast of the market trends in various regions, and its experienced sales and after-sales teams respond quickly to provide merchants with appropriate business logistics support. Thus, medium, small and micro enterprises from all industries can realise smoother strategic operations and KPay can fulfill its vision of “building a mutually beneficial and complementary e-finance ecological environment”.
KPay Merchant Service Limited was established in July 2020 with headquarters in Hong Kong, China. It began to provide its services to the market at the beginning of 2021 and will gradually expand to major cities around the world.
For more information about KPay, please visit the Company’s website:
www.kpay-group.com
KPay Merchant Service Limited
Katie Lau +852 3706 7836 Email: katielau@kpay-group.com
Strategic Financial Relations Limited
Shelly Cheng +852 2864 4857 Email: shelly.cheng@sprg.com.hk
Vivian Cheung +852 2114 2821 Email: vivian.cheung@sprg.com.hk
Yeahka’s Portfolio Company Fshi Technology Receives Further Funding of Hundreds of Million RMB to Accelerate Development of Open SaaS Strategy
Yeahka (09923.HK)’s portfolio company Fshi Technology (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd (Fshi Technology), announced the completion of its Series B funding. It is reported that the investor of this financing round is RYK Capital Partners Limited, with an investment amount of US$21 million (RMB134 million).
The proceeds will be put towards general working capital, product development, marketing, daily liquidity needs as well as acquisitions. This round of funding for Fshi Technology was its third round of financing this year, following its over RMB 100 million Series A funding in February and nearly RMB100 million in Series A+ funding in March.
Meanwhile, Fshi Technology announced the acquisition of 60% equity of Shenzhen Zhizhanggui Cloud Service Co., Ltd. (“Zhizhanggui”) by means of cash and newly issued equity. According to Fshi Technology, the acquisition of Zhizhanggui will equip it with the standardized infrastructure of “hardware + software,” which will become the cornerstone for Fshi’s development. It will further accelerate the development of its open SaaS strategy through integrating mature SaaS modules into offline merchants.
After the completion of the Series B funding and the acquisition of Zhizhanggui’s equity, Fshi Technology will focus on market expansion. It will increase its market share by exploring merchants’ demands and refining its products and services. To promote digital transformation, Fshi Technology will provide merchants with one-stop smart operation solutions, covering areas such as payment, marketing, management and other intelligent business solutions, through the use of payment as an entry point and deployment of scenario-based solutions, AI and Big Data analytics.
According to public information, Fshi Technology was established in 2016 and is committed to becoming China’s largest one-stop digitalized platform for merchants. Its SaaS open platform “Haoshengyi” has integrated with various SaaS industry applications including CRM and marketing. It has penetrated into various use case scenarios including food and beverage, retail, apparel, lifestyle services, and entertainment, providing comprehensive SaaS products and services ranging from membership management, food ordering, kitchen management, supply chain management, fintech to interactive marketing, etc.
In 2019, Hong Kong-listed Yeahka (09923.HK) invested in Fshi Technology, making it a key member of Yeahka’s ecosystem. Through “Haoshengyi,” its merchant SaaS digital platform, Fshi Technology explores merchants’ needs and provides services to merchants together with Yeahka.
Leveraging the management experience and technological capabilities of Yeahka, Fshi Technology has also further strengthened the product matrix of “Haoshengyi” and team management, enabling it to provide in-depth digital services to more merchants. The completion of Series B funding fully demonstrates the potential of the merchant services market and the potential of Fshi Technology’s SaaS digital platform.
Currently, Fshi Technology’s “Haoshengyi” open platform has covered 30+ cities and regions and served over 700,000 merchants.
This round of funding has given Fshi Technology strong capital backing, and the acquisition of Zhizhanggui has further optimized its product matrix. The continued expansion of capital resources will further strengthen the financial capabilities of Fshi Technology and expand its business, enabling Yeahka to provide better services to merchants and consumers as well as to develop a more sustainable technology-enabled business model.
Singapore P2P Lender BRDGE: Flexible financing key to SME survival during pandemic-driven business uncertainty; launches F&B loans package and SME digitalisation platform
- BRDGE funded more than S$ 11m in loans to 46 Singapore SMEs since April 2020; across more industries as compared to a similar period pre-pandemic
- Average loan size today is S$352,000 compared to S$836,000 pre-pandemic, a decrease of 58% alluding to focus on cashflow for rising costs around rent and labour instead of growth
- In response to uncertainty around dining-in, BRDGE launches new F&B loans packaged with interest rates from less than as 1% per month for between three to six months, with a lowered credit assessment criteria matched to changing dining in rules in the past three to six months
- Part of BRDGE’s focus on Singapore SME Survival during COVID-19, together with efforts around digitalisation through its e-commerce mobile app B Mart
BRDGE Technology (BRDGE), an MAS licensed Peer-to-Peer lending platform launched in 2014, today announced the launch of a food and beverage (F&B) financing package specially catered to support Singapore’s Food and Beverage (F&B) Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the current pandemic-driven uncertainty around dining-in. The loans package, with affordable interest rates from less than 1% per month and a short tenure of three-to-six-months, is specially designed to help establishments survive and potentially thrive during this period when cashflow is of importance for salaries and rentals.
One unique aspect of the F&B BRDGE loan is the credit assessment process, which takes the challenging business landscape into account with a lowered and targeted criteria on credit assessment: BRDGE will assess only the latest three-to-six months of the SME’s recent cashflow, bank statements and bank balance, matched against the changing dining-in rules, to identify F&B businesses which are able to survive and thrive.
BRDGE offers funding support for SMEs that are non-bankable or unable to secure a loan from traditional financial institutions. Most of the time it is due to a less than two-year track record or small annual revenues, or have maxed their credit facilities or who require a Bridging Loan. BRDGE then carries out an assessment and matches SMEs with potential investors.
Mr Kevin Wong, CEO, BRDGE Technology, said, “The government has been extremely supportive with the various grants and packages for businesses and their employees in Singapore since the start of the pandemic, and the community has also continued their support to Singapore SMEs. However, with the recently announced extension of the stabilisation phase, Singapore businesses, specifically F&B establishments which depend very much on dining-in for their revenues, continue to be pressured by thinner margins, tight cashflow, and the rising cost of rent and labour. With group sizes for dining-in having been adjusted more than 10 times since April 2020, F&B businesses are faced with continued uncertainty and many are on the brink of survival. This loan package is designed to help them survive and potentially thrive in the short term, with a more relevant assessment process grounded in the very different business reality today.”
Cashflow a priority for SMEs during COVID-19
Since the start of the pandemic in April 2020 till today, BRDGE has funded more than 46 SMEs with more than S$ 11m in loans. As compared to a similar period pre-pandemic (April 2019 to April 2020), there has been a distinct reduction of 58% to the average loan size per borrower from S$352,000 vs S$836,000, alluding to a shift in borrowing for growth pre-pandemic, to survival during the pandemic with cash used to maintain operational costs.
More SMEs has also requested for funding since April 2020, at 46 against 17 pre-pandemic, with companies from industries such as Arts, Entertainment and Recreation, Health and Medical, Marine and Shipping, and Beauty and Wellness, requesting for loans.
Kevin added, “As the pandemic continues, more and more businesses are facing problems maintaining cashflow. We’re also seeing a fundamental shift in the reasons for getting loans. Where previously companies were discussing funding to help them grow or expand, today we are speaking to business owners who are concerned about surviving to the next month. The government and consumers are surely doing their part to help businesses survive, but every little bit helps and this relook at how we assess loans is one part of our commitment to the Singapore business community.”
As part of its efforts to tide SMEs through this challenging period, BRDGE also recently started developing B Mart, a new e-commerce mobile app that is designed to help SMEs in Singapore digitalise and find new customers online. On the platform now are more than 7 businesses with over 500 SKUs representing B2B industries such as Creative and Marketing and B2C businesses such as Food & Beverages, Beauty & Health, Fashion, etc. BRDGE plans to increase this to 2,000 SKUs by the end of the year, with all 237 BRDGE’s SME borrowers since 2014 being able to tap on this platform. All applicants of today’s F&B BRDGE loans can have access to the platform and will be able to tap on the BRDGE online delivery app at a fixed and competitive 5% commission rate to help lower operational costs.
F&B businesses can apply for the BRDGE F&B loan via the BRDGE website: https://register.brdge.tech/fandb-smes, while investors who are seeking to support local businesses can find out more here https://register.brdge.tech/fandb-investor or register themselves on the BRDGE website.
SME owners who are interested in listing their products on the B Mart app to grow their customer base and business can get in touch with BRDGE directly at admin@bmart.sg.
About BRDGE Technology
BRDGE Technology is an MAS licensed P2P lending platform with a Capital Market Service license (CMS 100642). Founded in 2014, it is among the pioneer batch of homegrown P2P lending platforms and is the highest-rated crowdfunding platform on Seedly. Till date, BRDGE has crowdfunded a total of S$72,022,115 and has a community size of over 17,000 investors and SMEs. https://www.brdge.tech/
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FACTSHEET
Address: 57 Mohamed Sultan Rd #03-05 Sultan-Link, Singapore 238997
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Smartpay officially launches the first all-in-one e-commerce payment solution and BNPL service that is completely free for consumers
Smartpay K.K. today announced the launch of its new “Buy Now Pay Later” (BNPL) service, which combines an all-in-one payment experience and interest free payment solution, designed to solve Japanese consumer payment issues and improve merchant conversion rates.
Built out of a passion for enabling Japanese merchants to succeed in e-commerce, Smartpay aims to remove the anxiety of shopping online for Japanese credit card users with the first completely free and secure, seamless, fully automated, online payment experience.
The company is backed by several high-profile investors including SMBC Venture Capital (SMBC-VC) and Global Founders Capital (GFC), the largest global investor in BNPL.
A series of new BNPL innovations for consumers and merchants in Japan
Japan has an e-commerce cart abandonment rate of over 80%, which is one of the highest in the world. Smartpay aims to increase the conversion rate for Japanese merchants by removing the friction that exists between cart and order completion.
Smartpay has redefined the e-commerce payment experience by addressing Japanese consumer anxiety about interest, hidden fees, sharing personal data and the time needed to fill in online forms to complete the transaction.
Smartpay is the first free of charge BNPL payment option for Japanese consumers who have credit cards. There are no sign-up fees, interest fees, settlement fees, or late charges. The payment experience is also Japan’s first cross-merchant, cross-platform, and single-click checkout BNPL service, allowing consumers to checkout in as little as 10 seconds. The BNPL payment solution is simple to understand, structured on 3 equal installments over 8 weeks. This means that unlike the existing BNPL services in Japan, customers do not need to go to the convenience store to make payments or pay any bank transfer fees.
For merchants, Smartpay also addresses key cost and administration pain points by covering all payment fraud risks and managing all consumer-led chargebacks. Smartpay integration has been built to reduce merchant integration time and therefore resource cost and can be integrated onto merchant websites in one day with the highest quality SDKs and APIs. In addition, to specifically help small and medium sized merchants, Apple Pay and Google Pay are automatically integrated into the Smartpay solution. Research shows that Smartpay will improve sales conversion for e-commerce merchants by more than 10% over a 12-month period.
Built specifically for Japan
Smartpay was co-founded by Pieterjan Vandaele (ex-Paidy) and Sam Ahmed (ex-Facebook). The Smartpay team brings together 80 years of e-commerce, Fintech and payment experience specifically relevant to Japan. Brought together by a passion for the quality, precision, and creativity of Japanese merchants, as well as an understanding of the unique obstacles that Japanese merchants and consumers face with online retail, Pieter and Sam formed Smartpay to unleash the potential of e-commerce in Japan.
Pieter has held roles at Fintech companies including Stripe and Coiney. He specifically leverages the experience from his former role as Head of Engineering for Paidy, the BNPL service which was acquired by Paypal earlier this year, to identify the pain points that no BNPL service in Japan has addressed until the creation of Smartpay.
Sam is a Harvard Business School Alum and in 2018 was recognised on the Digerati APAC list of the top 50 people in the digital industry by The Drum. He was formerly Head of Payments and Fintech APAC and Japan at Facebook, held senior roles at Mastercard and Standard Chartered Bank. In 2015, Sam wrote a white paper on e-commerce in Asia/Japan where he identified that the key to success for Japanese merchants was about making the online check-out experience as smooth as possible. Smartpay addresses this through its single-click, multiplatform checkout function.
The company is led in Japan by Naoya Otsubo, a highly recognized and experienced digital and FinTech leader. As Japan Country Manager for AppsFlyer, he built the team and the business from scratch and expanded the market share from 0 to 51%. As Director of Mid Market, APAC at Critero, Naoya created and managed teams in Japan, Korea and Australia, and at Yahoo! Inc. (Overture) and Yahoo! Japan he led multiple teams including Online Sales, Key Accounts and Global Sales.
Key investors
SMBC Venture Capital (SMBC-VC) has invested in Smartpay as its BNPL service of choice in Japan. As a leading banking institution in Japan, the investment by SMBC-VC enables Smartpay to help Japanese merchants succeed with e-commerce.
Global Founders Capital (GFC) are the global leaders in BNPL and consumer finance investments and provides Smartpay with deep operational support to build to scale. Smartpay and GFC will work together to bring global BNPL best practices to Japan in order to accelerate the growth and success of e-commerce across the country.
Accelerating e-commerce in Japan
Naoya Otsubo, Smartpay Country Manager explains that “Smartpay recognizes the anxiety of merchants in Japan will cause some retailers to potentially invest in the wrong areas. We believe that we can help merchants increase online sales conversions and revenue by 10 to 20% without having to invest in costly advertising or infrastructure builds.”
Co-founder Sam Ahmed added that “Our team has been passionate about Japan and its e-commerce journey for many years. We are seeing more consumers enjoying purchasing online and we’d like to help connect these consumers to the merchants in a more efficient manner.”
Co-founder Pieterjan Vandaele said that “We are extremely proud to have built an exciting and unique service specifically for Japan. For consumers, we focused on taking away the worries around fees, providing simplicity for signups, and delivering the smoothest user experience. For merchants, we provide an accessible service that focuses on revenue growth.”
Smartpay’s purpose is to enable all Japanese merchants to succeed in e-commerce. From December 2021, Smartpay will be providing a free e-commerce training for 10,000 Japanese merchants to learn e-commerce best practices for onsite conversion, attracting new customers and revenue expansion.
About Smartpay
Smartpay understands the uncertainty and anxiety people face in the new world of digital commerce. Our all-in-one payment experience and interest-free BNPL solution is designed to solve Japanese consumer payment issues and improve merchant conversion rates. By eliminating interest, hidden fees, and the anxiety consumers feel about sharing their data, our service provides the smoothest user experience for online payments. For merchants, we deliver a system solution that focuses on growing their revenue. We are changing the standard of payments, shopping, and consumer finance solutions. For consumers, for businesses, for both. For more information, please visit: https://smartpay.co/about/
Media contact
E-mail: fh.tokyo.smartpay@fleishman.com
Contact: Viran Pandya, +817036243084
Yeahka Invests RMB100 million to Acquire 60% Stake in Qianqianhui to Expand its In-Store e-Commerce Service Solutions
- Acquisition expected to accelerate Company’s exposure to local lifestyle services
Yeahka Limited (Yeahka or the Company, Stock Code: 09923), a leading payment-based technology platform in China, announced today that it has agreed to invest RMB100 million in Dingding Cultural Tourism (Chengdu) Co., Ltd. (the parent company of Qianqianhui, Qianqianhui) as registered capital and capital reserve of Qianqianhui. Following the acquisition, Yeahka will hold 60% of the enlarged share capital of Qianqianhui, and Qianqianhui will be integrated into Yeahka’s in-store e-commerce services solutions segment.
Yeahka’s strategic investment in Qianqianhui further strengthens the Company’s capabilities in its technology-enabled business services segment by deepening the connection between merchants and consumers, and improving the sales performance of merchants. At the same time, consumers will be able to conveniently enjoy local lifestyle benefits such as discounts and promotions.
Liu Yingqi, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Yeahka, said, “Qianqianhui has been a highly competitive player in the local lifestyle services market in China, and our company delivers services to millions of merchants that have expressed a great deal of interest in more local lifestyle service solutions. We look forward to continuously creating value for merchants and consumers, and realizing synergies between our existing businesses.”
Chen Jiading, Founder of Qianqianhui, said, “Qianqianhui has accumulated extensive experience and capabilities in local lifestyle services, e-commerce services and the distribution through of new media KOL. We are delighted to join the Yeahka family and look forward to writing the next chapter as we roll out our combined capabilities in the local lifestyle services market.
Qianqianhui is a highly competitive player in local lifestyle services, delivering a high of nearly RMB100 million in GMV in a single month
Established in May 2020, the Qianqianhui platform positions itself as a popular “high-end shopping platform,” offering users access to tourist attractions, high-end resorts, buffets, catering, other local lifestyle services and products.
In just the half year following its establishment, Qianqianhui achieved breakthroughs in terms of both revenue and business scale. To-date, the platform has served more than 6 million merchants, and its peak monthly GMV has exceeded RMB93 million. Qianqianhui has branches in first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, as well as key provincial cities such as Chengdu, Hangzhou, Changsha and Suzhou.
As a highly competitive player in the local lifestyle services sector in the post-mobile Internet era, Qianqianhui has emerged as a strong player through its precise product positioning and the extensive experience of its management team.
In terms of merchandising, with its high-quality product supply chains and diversified channels, Qianqianhui helps merchants increase exposure and sales, reduce inventory pressure and lower customer acquisition costs while helping consumers obtain products and services with better value-for-money.
Qianqianhui’s product supply chain business covers more than 200 cities nationwide, but still has strong expansion capabilities. At present, the platform targets selected quality merchants, including five to seven-star hotels, special catering brands and major national catering chains to guarantee a superior user experience.
Qianqianhui has also established comprehensive sales channels to improve its penetration and operational capabilities in the consumer space. Currently, Qianqianhui has built a comprehensive communications network covering WeChat official accounts, boasting over 8 million followers, and other mini programs. On the WeChat platform, Qianqianhui also has more than 3 million registered community experts specializing in social network distribution. It is a leader in terms of KOL recommendations and shop-visit operations on Douyin. From July to November 2021 alone, the GMV from short videos on Douyin and live-streaming sales exceeded RMB100 million.
Qianqianhui’s founder, Chen Jiading, has accumulated years of experience in the local lifestyle services industry. He has managed and operated the LianLian Travel Around project for three years. Other core team members also have years of local lifestyle services experience and are veterans in merchandise product innovation and channel expansion.
Yeahka continues to strengthen its local lifestyle services, and evolve its technology-enabled business solutions
To bolster the Group’s development in technology-enabled business solutions, Yeahka has presented its development roadmap for local lifestyle services in the recent years.
With a market potential of trillions of dollars, the local lifestyle services sector is not sufficiently connected. According to publicly available data, as at the first half of 2021, Yeahka served over 6.13 million merchants reaching 820 million consumers. Most merchants have expressed strong demand for services that support customer acquisition and sales, while consumers are constantly looking for more offline local lifestyle benefits, discounts and promotions.
Yeahka officially entered the local lifestyle services sector after launching its in-store e-commerce solutions business in the second half of 2020. Services such as the “Leshangquan Small Gold Card” and “Leshangquan In-store Services” grew rapidly after their debut. In the first half of 2021, the Company’s in-store e-commerce business served nearly 10,000 merchants, and more than 1.42 million paid consumers. The platform’s GMV exceeded RMB71 million, and overall revenue nearly reached RMB45 million.
For merchants, Yeahka’s in-store e-commerce services include guidance from local merchandising experts, design of promotional packages, and support for launching on e-commerce platforms, payment and SaaS sales networks. The Company helps merchants precisely drive consumer traffic and improve direct sales through its omnichannel coverage.
For consumers, services such as the “Leshangquan Small Gold Card” and “Leshangquan In-store Services,” and the Company’s diversified marketing methods can offer customized and cost-effective in-store or to-home lifestyle services.
Following the integration of Qianqianhui, Yeahka will not only further consolidate its foundation in the local lifestyle services sector, but also create new growth opportunities for its technology-enabled business service solutions.
For Yeahka’s in-store e-commerce business, Qianqianhui’s strong supply chain, sales and channel operations will create strong synergies after connecting with the brands, traffic and technologies of existing businesses, thus further optimizing the portfolio of its in-store e-commerce business solutions. In addition to the in-store e-commerce sector, Qianqianhui can also generate strong synergies with businesses such as payment and SaaS digital solutions and boost development of their businesses.
Regional insurtech Igloo and HD, the region’s only D2C direct-pay healthcare marketplace, announce partnership to launch insurance products on HDmall
- Strategic partnership marks Igloo’s first partnership with Digital Health brand
- Offers HD’s over 6 million users digital convenience for medical, hospitalisation, cancer and personal accident insurance
- Taps on the growth potential of the general insurance market in Thailand which was estimated around 4 billion in 2020, and expected to grow to USD10.6 billion in 2025
- Direct-to-consumer health insurance distribution opportunities buoyed by Millenial and Gen Z digital-first consumers who rely less on traditional employer-based health insurance, according to research by AVIA Health and Accenture
Regional insurtech company Igloo has teamed up with HD to provide health-related micro-insurance products via the HDmall healthcare marketplace platform in Thailand. Muang Thai Insurance (MTI), one of Thailand’s leading non-life insurance companies, will be underwriting the health insurance products such as cancer and mobile syndrome insurance, among others.
HD is a D2C direct-pay healthcare marketplace in emerging Southeast Asia. HD leverages ecommerce technology to connect direct-pay patients to hospitals and healthcare SMEs, with the mission to bring affordable healthcare to the ‘99%’. The healthtech startup has grown its users to 6 million and recently sold over 10,000 Moderna vaccines within 12 hours via the HDmall platform.
“Igloo’s tech capabilities and insurance expertise will join our portfolio of ecommerce technologies that empower direct-pay healthcare including credit card installment payments and buy-now-pay-later solutions that have already enabled people to pay for high-ticket healthcare procedures such as In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF), Cesarean Delivery (C-Section), and Lasik; dental-related products such as Clear Aligners and Invisalign; as well as medical aesthetics-related procedures” said Sheji Ho, CEO and Co-Founder of HD.
“We are happy to partner with HD, our first digital health partner on top of industries such as ecommerce, travel, telecommunications, logistics to delivery space. Together, we aim to create an insurance customer journey that meets the needs of today’s digital consumers, especially in Southeast Asia and in Thailand where technology has become more and more a part of our daily lives. HD’s healthcare marketplace and unique access to Millennial and Gen Z patients is the perfect fit for us to implement our technology of digital insurance that is relevant in today’s world. Igloo will continue to look at expanding its partnership in the digital health space across the SEA region,” said Raunak Mehta, Chief Commercial Officer, Igloo.
Across emerging Southeast Asia, 40% of healthcare expenditure is paid out of pocket (compared to 10% in the US). With the rise of the ‘Creator Economy’ and popularity of fractional trading apps like Robinhood – both of which were accelerated through the Covid pandemic – an increasing number of Millennial and Gen Z consumers are looking for more control over their healthcare consumption and expenditure. Unlike their parents’ generation, these digital-first consumers are less and less likely to be tied to traditional employer-based health insurance. This is based on recent findings by AVIA Health, a healthcare digital transformation consultancy, as well as Accenture’s Digital Health Consumer Survey.
“We see Igloo’s innovative micro health insurance technologies as a perfect complement to our focus on unlocking the $24 billion direct-pay healthcare opportunity in emerging Southeast Asia. With only 0.06% health insurance penetration (gross written premiums out of GDP), we need to take an out-of-the-box approach to empower patients in Thailand to finance healthcare,” added Sheji.
Igloo’s technologies will be integrated into HD and applied to both self-checkout and conversational commerce on the HDmall direct-pay healthcare marketplace platform to ensure the best possible user experience.
“We’re excited about partnering with both Igloo and HD, the latter marking our first collaboration with a healthtech startup. This strategic initiative will enable Muang Thai Insurance to distribute our micro-insurance products direct-to-consumer at scale and expand to a vast majority of customers digitally while leveraging Igloo’s machine learning and HD’s healthcare targeting and segmentation,” said Mrs. Nualphan Lamsam, President and Chief Executive Officer of Muang Thai Insurance PCL.
Partnership image is available for download here.
https://preciouscomms.box.com/s/jp4alg2s52kji7bnw7okaq62368jsugr
About Igloo
Igloo, previously known as “Axinan”, is the first full-stack insurtech firm to emerge from Singapore. It has offices in Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, and Vietnam, and tech centres are located in China. With a mission of making insurance accessible for all, the firm leverages big data, real-time risk assessment, and end-to-end automated claims management to create B2B2C insurance solutions for platform companies and insurance companies. Igloo’s insurance solutions enable companies to eliminate their exposure to operational risk, create new revenue streams, and optimize and enhance existing products and services. In April 2020, Igloo successfully closed its Series A+ funding round worth US$8.2 million, bringing its total funding to US$16 million from global investors.
Igloo is led by a core team that comprises top talent from the technology and insurance industries hailing from global corporations including Facebook, Grab, Flipkart, Garena, Manulife, Shopee, Yahoo! and Zalora. For more information, please visit https://www.iglooinsure.com
About HD
HD is a D2C direct-pay healthcare marketplace in emerging Southeast Asia. HD leverages ecommerce technology to connect direct-pay patients to hospitals and healthcare SMEs, with the mission to bring affordable healthcare to the ‘99%’. Direct-pay health shoppers on the HD marketplace access a range of affordable services including consumer healthcare, online pharmacy / telepharmacy, and telehealth, while healthcare providers benefit from HD’s suite of healthcare marketing solutions. With an average of 40% of healthcare expenditure being paid out of pocket in our region, we believe our ‘JD Health for SEA’ + ‘Shopify for Healthcare’ approach is key to fixing healthcare for a $24 billion direct-pay market. HD is currently available to users in both Thailand and Indonesia, with Vietnam launching in 2022.
About Muang Thai Insurance (MTI)
Founded in 1932 and currently one of Thailand’s top 5 leading non-life insurance companies under the leadership of Mrs. Nualphan Lamsam, President and Chief Executive Officer. Muang Thai Insurance PCL (MTI) has been expanding businesses continuously through various progressions including insurance product development and social development matching with the current global social situation. MTI’s main products include fire insurance, marine insurance, motor insurance, and miscellaneous insurance. The company has launched many digital platforms to reach out and provide new services to satisfy all needs of all customers.
Media Contact for Igloo
PRecious Communications
igloo@preciouscomms.com
Regional insurtech Igloo named among “2021 Inclusive Fintech 50”
- Igloo has been named amongst the ‘2021 Inclusive Fintech 50’ – from nearly 300 eligible applications globally
- In August 2021, it also won ‘Insurtech Initiative of the Year’ at the 6th Insurance Asia Awards for its innovative solution with PhilPacific Insurance Brokers & Inc
- In 2021, Igloo has established over 15 key partnerships in diverse verticals to strengthen its footprint across the region, including leading food delivery and mobile wallet platforms in Singapore, Indonesia, and the Philippines.
- The company aims to strengthen its foothold in Southeast Asia through more strategic partnerships by the end of this year.
Regional insurtech, Igloo, was named as one of the winners of the 2021 Inclusive Fintech 50 (IF50) competition, an annual competition hosted by The Center for Financial Inclusion. In its 3rd year, IF50 recognises early-stage Fintechs that are helping low-income customers and micro and small enterprises who are affected by the pandemic and help them rebound, rebuild and recover.
Igloo’s partnerships with foodpanda in Singapore and Thailand reflect this – in the midst of the Covid-19, Igloo and foodpanda saw a need to provide food delivery riders and their families with a peace of mind as they travel the roads to meet heightened demand from Covid-19 dining restrictions.
Last year, Igloo partnered with foodpanda Thailand to introduce an insurance programme that provides free Covid-19 protection for delivery riders in Thailand. In Singapore this year, Igloo introduced PandaCare, a fuss-free and wallet-friendly insurance coverage for delivery riders. PandaCare is specifically designed for gig economy workers and encompasses six benefits: Accidental Death, Accidental Medical Expenses, Accidental Mobile Phone Screen Damage, Daily Hospital Cash, Permanent Total/Partial, Disablement and Temporary Disablement. These benefits also extend to their immediate family members.
In August 2021, Igloo also won ‘Insurtech Initiative of the Year’ at the 6th Insurance Asia Awards. The award recognises Igloo’s partnership with PhilPacific Insurance Brokers & Inc (Philinsure) in digitalising PhilInsure’s insurance products. This initiative aims to push digitalisation efforts to protect Filipinos and their family members against unpredictable risks such as natural catastrophes like typhoons, flooding, and earthquakes and of course, health risks, including Covid-19.
“We are honoured to be part of the Inclusive Fintech 50. Understanding the challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic has exerted on the industries, business models, and people’s lives, we at Igloo have accelerated technology and digital transformation to help bring support and peace of mind to people during these uncertain times. This achievement is also a validation of our mission to make insurance more accessible in Southeast Asia,” said Raunak Mehta, Chief Commercial Officer of Igloo.
This year, Igloo has established over 15 key partnerships in diverse industries to make insurance more accessible across the region. In July, the insurtech company partnered with regional leading food delivery platform foodpanda Singapore to launch the insurance product for gig economy workers. In September, Igloo successfully launched partnerships with leading e-Wallet platforms in the Philippines GCash and DANA in Indonesia to provide online shopping insurance product (PH) and phone screen protection insurance product (ID). The company aims to launch more strategic collaborations with partners in different industries ranging across e-commerce, lifestyle, and health tech by the end of this year.
About Igloo
Igloo, previously known as “Axinan”, is the first full-stack insurtech firm to emerge from Singapore. It has offices in Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, and Vietnam, and tech centres are located in China. With a mission of making insurance accessible for all, the firm leverages big data, real-time risk assessment, and end-to-end automated claims management to create B2B2C insurance solutions for platform companies and insurance companies. Igloo’s insurance solutions enable companies to eliminate their exposure to operational risk, create new revenue streams, and optimize and enhance existing products and services. In April 2020, Igloo successfully closed its Series A+ funding round worth US$8.2 million, bringing its total funding to US$16 million from global investors.
Igloo is led by a core team that comprises top talent from the technology and insurance industries hailing from global corporations including Facebook, Grab, Flipkart, Garena, Manulife, Shopee, Yahoo! and Zalora. For more information, please visit https://www.iglooinsure.com
Media Queries
PRecious Communications for Igloo
igloo@preciouscomms.com