Singapore – Involve Asia, the martech firm with a focus on Southeast Asia, has expanded its leadership team through the appointment of two senior marketing hires. This comes after its recent fundraising of over US$10m led by Bintang Capital Partners. 

Melissa Chan is inaugurated as vice president of brand and marketing, whilst Kylee Yap assumes the position of director of marketing services. With the new leadership, Involve Asia looks to continue expanding its product line and services to its network of clients and partners across the region. 

The company’s main value proposition is making affiliate marketing accessible and cost-effective, in order for individuals to small-to-medium-sized marketing companies to enhance their network with global brands. Involve Asia says Chan and Yap will be instrumental in growing its regional brand and marketing efforts and in leading the company’s team across content, brand, public relations, social media, digital performance, marketing, and design. 

Chan is most recently the CMO of iMoney Group. She brings with her 25 years of experience including working in teams across the startup and fintech industries. Her vast in-market knowledge spans financial product development, digital banking, loyalty programs, and customer segmentation. Prior to joining Involve Asia, she held key leadership roles at CIMB bank, HSBC, Hong Leong, RHB Banking Group, and TNG Digital. 

Meanwhile, Yap is coming off his position as the interim country marketing manager of Meta for Malaysia. Over a span of 20 years with companies such as Meta, Lazada, CtrlShift, Ogilvy Action, and Saatchi & Saatchi, she had been deeply involved in curating and leading branding activities across offline, online, and social media platforms. She had been exposed to many regional and global events which have honed her skills in creating tailored campaigns. 

With a holistic background in client management, sales, event management, and branding, the company says Yap will be aiming to strategically grow Involve Asia’s presence in Southeast Asia and enhance its service quality to existing and new audiences. 

Yap commented, “We are living in a world that is rapidly growing its digital presence, and the online marketplace is an indispensable staple for most brands and advertisers post-pandemic. Through the extensive network that helps it effectively bridge the gap between brands and audiences, Involve Asia’s platform is uniquely positioned to amplify returns in the marketing partnership space.” 

Meanwhile, on the new journey with the firm, Chan says, “Involve Asia has such a captivating story combined with a social purpose that needs to be told. Many brands this year have been reviewing their marketing budgets and are looking for cost-optimised solutions to meet their business and marketing goals. Individuals are also starting to supplement and increase their income by entering the gig economy. I look forward to elevating the experience of affiliate marketing and fulfilling Involve Asia’s missions.” 

Along with optimising current growth channels, the firm further shared that both will hold key responsibilities for the development of bespoke marketing campaigns to drive additional revenue streams.

Since the company’s establishment in 2014, Involve Asia has expanded from its Malaysia base into Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines, tapping into Southeast Asia’s fastest-growing e-commerce and digital ad market. The company says it is charging forward with ‘ambitious’ growth planned in the coming months.

Singapore – Affiliate marketing platform Involve Asia has recently raised US$10m in funding, which the company will use to acquire complementary tech companies, as well as continuously invest in enhancing its platform and team.

As part of Involve’s plans to scale even more rapidly, part of its fundraise will be used to invest in companies that complement its business and leverage its network of clients and partners. In recent years, Involve has established a firm footing with influencers across the region which has driven strong results for advertisers. 

The company also plans to deploy a comprehensive suite of solutions that will increase the avenues for advertisers to leverage on influencers and their highly engaged audience. 

It is also expanding the team in line with its aggressive growth plans and hiring across many roles, with almost 50 positions open especially in business development, project management, product and DevOps.

Rene Menezes, president and co-founder of Involve said, “2022 marked Involve’s second chapter of aggressive growth. We’re not sitting around waiting for the global uncertainty to settle. We are in a position to invest and step on the gas while many are focused on consolidation and preserving cash. A number of industry-changing products are ready to be taken out of beta and will hit the market very soon.”

He added, “There is always a need for high impact, brand advertising but even more opportunity exists for marketers who adopt Involve’s platform with its focus on risk-free, highly effective returns on marketing budgets.”

The funding round was led by Bintang Capital Partners Berhad, the private equity arm of Affin Hwang Asset Management Berhad, with a parentage that includes leading global investment managers such as CVC Capital Partners and Nikko Asset Management. 

Singapore – Martech platform Involve Asia has announced the appointment of Rene Menezes as its newest president of the organisation, where he will be leading the commercial development of the organisation and will work in tandem with CEO and founder Jimmy How to manage the company and its stakeholders.

He brings over 25 years of leadership experience to Involve Asia, including most recently as director for the Southeast Asian partner office of SimilarWeb, and as former CEO of ad tech CtrlShift.

In addition, he also brings an ethos of entrepreneurship with one of his first ventures as a startup founder, providing a low-risk model for the largest digital media companies to enter emerging markets, highlighted by a client list that included Yahoo!, MSN, Facebook, Waze, Spotify, BBC, ESPN, and Disney.

Speaking about his appointment, he stated that as a board member of Involve Asia over the past eight years, he has witnessed the growth of Involve’s business and value creation for both publishers and advertisers. He also added that he is excited to deepen his work with the team as they cement their position in e-commerce marketing in Southeast Asia.

“Involve Asia’s platform is already used by many of the largest advertisers, merchants, and publishers in the region as a reliable source of leads, actions, and sales. The time is now ripe to ensure that more companies are exposed to and leverage the power of our platform, its reach and our know-how,” he stated.

Menezes added, “Since the pandemic began, there has been a surge in e-commerce adoption across Southeast Asia. The market is going to see a more aggressive Involve Asia acquire new clients as the pool of potential customers which can benefit from our services has grown exponentially.”

Meanwhile, How stated, “Rene has advised the business since its inception and has been able to lend counsel through some challenging decisions and helped us take actions that had a lasting positive impact on the company. I’m excited to have him in the trenches beside me as we charge forward to build on our recent performance with far more aggressive goals for the short and mid-term.”

Singapore – Involve Asia, a MarTech platform for partnership marketing in Southeast Asia, has expanded to Vietnam, marking its growing footprint in the region. 

Involve Asia, which was founded in 2014, has worked closely with e-commerce, travel, and financial services companies to handle their digital marketing campaigns across Southeast Asia. Involve Asia, based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, has a presence in six countries in Southeast Asia and is backed by venture capital firms Accord Ventures, OSK Ventures International, and GDP Venture, among others.

Marketing partners in Vietnam face lengthy payment processes while working for marketers, and this is what Involve Asia aims to solve. From 60 to 90 days. using Involve’s proprietary risk assessment algorithm, advertisers are able to identify and eliminate fraudulent actions, resulting in faster payment of legitimate results. Because of Involve’s express withdrawal capabilities, marketing partners may manage their cashflows and build up their operations in as little as 15 days.

Jimmy How, CEO and Founder of Involve Asia, said that Vietnam is an important market for Involve Asia as it is one of the fastest-growing economies in Southeast Asia with a vibrant and technologically savvy population. 

‘With an e-commerce market in the country that is accelerating rapidly and high social media usage, it presents a ripe opportunity for us to help brands in the country reach their customers through our proprietary MarTech solution in a cost-efficient manner, and ultimately scale their business through partnerships with influencers, apps and affiliate sites,” How said.

How added, “We are looking to expand our footprint in the region by helping advertisers grow and manage their marketing partnerships more efficiently. One of the ways we plan to do this is to enable Advertisers to leverage our risk scoring system to ensure that their marketing partners get paid quicker, without having to hire additional operational staff as their marketing partnerships scale.”