7/9/2018 – Malaysia-based mobile Online-to-Offline (O2O) platform Fave has recently secured its Series B funding from strategic and existing investors Sequoia India, SIG Asia, and Venturra Capital, among others.
The three named investors are repeated investors, having previously involved in Fave’s US$12 million Series A funding round back in early 2016.
For its latest Series B funding round, Fave managed to raise over US$20 million which the startup will use to accelerate its exponential growth plans of serving 100,000 offline businesses by 2019.
The funding will be used for marketing, particularly in consumer and merchant marketing, in addition to strategically invest in reaching out to new users and offline businesses that have yet to come on board Fave.
Formerly known as Kfit, the startup began as a fitness subscription service but later pivoted to group-buying and coupons after it acquired Groupon’s businesses in Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia.
The online platform currently offers loyalty rewards across multiple categories including food and beverage, beauty and wellness, travel and leisure, theme parks and entertainment, and various services.
It connects retail businesses to millions of customers through special offers, bookings, and cashback solutions, while also providing booking management, analytics tool and a cashless mobile payment solution FavePay.
“Everyone talks about the cashless society but making the actual shift requires an exceptional user experience, with clear benefits for the users as well as for businesses,” said Pieter Kemps, the Principle of Sequoia Capital Singapore.
“Only by helping businesses drive revenue and reduce operational burden, can you truly drive adoption and create choice for consumers; and Fave knew this when it launched FavePay.”
“Sequoia India has been impressed with their execution and exceptional growth, and is happy to support Fave on their journey to create a cashless society,” Kemps added.
To date, Fave has offer over 40,000 active rewards to a user base of over 3 million customers. The startup claims that in 2018 alone, the platform has so far driven more than US$100 million in revenue to offline businesses.
Leveraging on the large market of mobile-centric consumers in the region, Fave has seen an annual growth rate of 300 percent, recording millions of transactions, and has seen adoption in over 15 cities across Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia.
Joel Neoh, Founder of Fave said, “Consumer behavior is changing with buyers spending more time online than offline, and so Fave aims to help make it easy for all offline businesses to go online through the Fave platform.”
“This helps retail businesses in food & beverage, consumer goods, lifestyle services and other categories to transform themselves to meet the needs of tech-savvy consumers in Southeast Asia,” he added.
Earlier this year, AirAsia BIG Loyalty teamed up exclusively with Fave to reveal a new feature on its BIG Loyalty app known as BIG Deals by Fave. Under this partnership, Malaysian BIG members can earn BIG Points, while enjoying savings of up to 95% off on travel and lifestyle deals by Fave.
