6/6/2018 – C31 Ventures, the venture capital arm of Singaporean mall operator CapitaLand and Wavemaker Partners, a Singapore and Silicon Valley venture capital firm has together lead a US$1.7 million seed funding round in Omnistream.
The seed round was also participated by Olga Lyudovyk, a former executive at retail brands including Zara and Marks & Spencer, as well as an unnamed Hong Kong investor.
Investments from C31 Ventures were made under the third installment of the National Research Foundation Singapore’s (NRF) Early Stage Venture Fund, which is an initiative of the Singapore government aimed at supporting local tech startups.
With the fresh fundings, Omnistream will invest in product development and geographical expansion to Indonesia and the Philippines, which is said to provide vast opportunities due to their informal economies and distribution of retailers and brands.
Besides, Omnistream will so use the capital to invest into talent recruitment for its product and algorithmic development teams, in an effort to provide better solutions
Initially founded in Hong Kong, Omnistream is relocating to Singapore in order to tap into the resources offered by CapitaLand. The real estate developer runs several of the city state’s biggest malls and counts various brands and retailers among its commercial tenants.
“CapitaLand has an unparalleled network of malls, retailers, and shoppers in the region. Being a portfolio company of C31 Ventures gives us access to these living labs for us to test our innovations,” said Wendy Chen, the Founder and CEO of Omnistream.
This serves as a great source of data for Omnistream, which specializes in the collection and analysis of data to determine shopping habits and t, ends. It also works with proprietary and open data, in addition to that which comes directly from its clients.
According to Chen, this includes coalition loyalty programs, transports and payment data, as well as traffic and footfall patterns among some.
The company then translates these data into actionable insights to aid retailers in making decisions, such as deciding on the store layout, stock selection, and marketing.
Different from other data analytic companies out there, Omnistream offers a packaged data and consultancy service, whereby the company uses tech driven solutions to help clients implement the insights derived from the data.
“Retail will only get more challenging as consumers get increasing options. In our attention deprived world, Omnistream builds technology that gives retailers and brands real-time persona intelligence and predictive operations,” explained Chen.
