Asia Partners leads $80m round for Singapore's ShopBack

January Capital re-upped in the investment, billed as a Series F. It brings total funding to USD 230m since inception in 2014, including two Temasek Holdings-led rounds of USD 40m in 2021 and USD 75m in 2020. In February, ShopBack was said to be targeting USD 150m for the latest round at a valuation of USD 1bn, according to Bloomberg.

ShopBack promotes products – travel, fashion, health, beauty, food, and general merchandise – on behalf of retailers, receiving a commission on each sale. A portion of these commissions is wound back into the business in the form of discounts for end-users. It has more than 10,000 partner merchants, including Alibaba Group’s Taobao and Lazada platforms, Expedia, and Zalora.

The company helps around 1m consumers a day discover deals, compared products, get rewards, and make payments, facilitating more than USD 3.5bn in sales annually, mostly in Southeast Asia. The user base currently amounts to about 35m across ten markets, compared to 19m in seven markets in early 2020.

“We want to help our users to shop and save smarter, particularly in this inflationary economy with recession looming on the horizon,” Henry Chan, co-founder and CEO of ShopBack (pictured second from left with fellow co-founder Joel Leong, centre, and Asia Partners executives), said in a statement.

Recent traction includes the launch of ShopBack Pay, which allows shoppers to pay in-store using their preferred method of method – be it an app or traditional debit card – while accumulating rewards benefits. The service, launched in January, has about 2m users and 3,000 merchant partners in Singapore and Australia.

In November 2021, ShopBack acquired 100% of Singapore-based buy now, pay later (BNPL) player Hoolah, which had received funding the prior year from iGlobe Partners, Genting Ventures, and Allectus Capital. Hoolah works with about 2,000 online and in-store merchants in Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong, including Charles & Keith and Zalora.

The growth has been driven by expanding the leadership team. Recent hires include San Oo, formerly of US messaging giant Slack Technologies, as chief technology officers; and Hamish Moline, formerly of Australian BNPL company Zip, as a managing director responsible for financial services

The latest funding will be used for product development, expanding across Asia, and building capabilities for public market readiness. Asia Partners' key offering to portfolio companies is support listing in the US. The VC firm is led by Nick Nash, formerly president of internet platform Sea, which achieved Singapore’s first major consumer tech IPO in the US in 2017.

“ShopBack personifies the ideal of a compelling and practical consumer value proposition, being one of the most effective ways for brands to delight their customers and at the same time quantify the value of their marketing budget,” said Nash (pictured second from left). “This is the perfect time to back winners, to consolidate their position, and gain share.”

Previous investors include Rakuten Capital, EV Growth, Cornerstone Ventures, 33 Capital, EDBI, East Ventures, SoftBank Venture Asia, Blue Sky Private Equity, Aetius Capital, AppWorks Ventures, Qualgro Partners, and SingTel Innov8. The first institutional backer was Singapore’s Accel-X, which provided USD 500,000 in 2014.

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• Topics
• Southeast Asia
• Consumer
• Technology
• Expansion
• Singapore
• Asia Partners
• TMT
• Financial Services
• e-commerce