Other participants include Kaya Founders, JGDEV of the Gokongwei Group, and other notable Asia-based investors.

Etaily works with a range of consumer brands in Southeast Asia, including Levi’s, Skechers, Abbott, and L’Oreal. The company manages the e-commerce and marketing operations of more than 80 brands and has developed homegrown brands such as Floof Pets and Nutrie supplements. 

Headquartered in the Philippines, Etaily aims to establish a multi-country presence across Malaysia, Singapore, and other Southeast Asian markets. Its partnership with WPP Media seeks to strengthen retail and media enablement capabilities, combining commerce infrastructure with marketing expertise. 

The partnership is intended to serve social commerce needs in the Philippines-Malaysia-Singapore cluster, with lifestyle brands recently onboarded.

Moreover, Etaily has also expanded its board. Ayala Corporation will be represented by Mark Uy, managing director and head of corporate strategy and business development, while Brian Go, chief financial officer of the Gokongwei Group, joins as a new board member. The board also includes representatives from Temasek’s Pavilion Capital and other investors.

Founded in 2020 by Alexander Friedhoff, Etaily has processed more than 40 million orders across Lazada, Shopee, TikTok Shop, and brand.com channels. Its proprietary commerce engine spans brand development, operations, fulfillment, and analytics, including recently launched livestreaming, affiliate programs, and short-form video solutions.

Alexander Friedhoff, founder & CEO of Etaily, said, ”For the last five years, we’ve focused on building etaily into a commerce powerhouse for global brands in Southeast Asia. Now it is time to double down on the latest developments in Social Commerce and Livestreaming. With our massive focus on fully controlled livestream studios we will be able to offer asset-light operations, and now strengthened partnerships and investors, we are positioned to lead the next wave of online-first, offline-to-follow retail in our regional cluster.”

Meanwhile, Katsufumi Uchida, head of Asia-Pacific division and managing executive officer of SMBC, added, “As we celebrate 10 years in the Philippines, SMBC Group remains dedicated to our Asia Multi-Franchise strategy, leveraging our extensive branch network to strengthen our presence in the Philippines and across the region, striving for the continued economic growth in the Philippines. We are excited to contribute to the expansion of local commerce ecosystems and to connect financial services with the evolving digital marketplace through strategic partnerships such as with etaily.”

Etaily’s growth has been supported by a mix of investors, including Ayala Corporation, the Gokongwei Group, Landmark’s Cheng family, and the Po family behind Century Pacific Food Corporation. 

The company’s previous Series A round in 2023 was led by Taiwan’s SKS Capital and Singapore’s Pavilion Capital, with additional participation from the Magsaysay Family, Kaya Founders, Japan’s SBI ICCP Fund, and Foxmont Capital.

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Attended by representatives from the Tourism Authority of Thailand and business partners, the launch represents a major expansion of the Group’s content marketing strategies. It aims to deliver top travel inspiration and deals to adventurers via livestreaming, transforming how partners and consumers connect to elevate the tourism industry.

The Asia Live Streaming Centre will function as the Group’s regional hub, initially broadcasting daily content in Thai on Trip.com Thailand’s social media channels, with plans to expand to English content for international audiences in subsequent phases.

Additionally, Trip.com intends to collaborate with hotels, local attractions, and businesses across Thailand to highlight a variety of travel products and deals. The livestream will spotlight premium offerings, including those featured on Trip.Best, a curated ranking list on Trip.com that helps global travellers choose the top experiences at each destination.

The livestreaming content is also set to boost exposure and create new sales channels for the Group’s business partners, complementing existing initiatives like mega sales, influencer collaborations, and food tourism campaigns as part of a comprehensive marketing strategy.

Bo Sun, chief marketing officer at Trip.com Group, said, “We are pleased to have the Tourism Authority of Thailand and business partners witness this milestone with us today, as we collaborate closely to showcase and offer the best travel experiences for our users. The new livestreaming centre aims to capitalise on Thailand’s active social media user base and status as a top travel destination in the region. The move has the potential to elevate travel in the Asia region to new heights, as we leverage the power of livestreaming to engage with passionate travellers.”

Trip.com’s strategic launch of its new livestreaming hub in Thailand capitalises on the country’s advanced livestreaming ecosystem and diverse travel offerings. The Group plans to expand this content to Trip.com sites across Southeast Asia, with a rollout scheduled for Q1 2025. The long-term goal is to extend this livestreaming initiative to additional markets where it is gaining momentum.

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The homegrown and now leading live streaming platform in the Philippines unveiled ex-GoJek Widjaja as an addition to the team in June 2021. Widjaja is a fixture in business and tech, where in GoJek, she took on roles in business intelligence and growth. At kumu, Widjaja is charged to strengthen the platform’s overall product strategy and leverage her extensive experience in helping startups in growth, data, and strategy. 

The Filipino platform has earned supercharged traction over the course of the pandemic, becoming the go-to destination for creators and audiences; today, kumu fully realizes its leadership, becoming the partner of Pinoy Big Brother, one of the top reality TV shows in the country.

Here’s our exclusive conversation with Widjaja who shared with us her biggest challenge in the role, the new experiences they’re looking to build, and her forecast into content creation in 2022 – one she sees as authentic and ‘perfectly imperfect’ content making the biggest impact.

Stepping into the role of chief product officer, what has been the biggest challenge for you?

Like everyone else this year, working with a remote team in the middle of a global pandemic! Building and showing empathy to a team who has never seen you in person is challenging, but what’s more is that everyone is going through exceptional hardship. From a pure product standpoint, I think the challenge for newer businesses will be differentiating ‘pulled forward’ covid-era user behaviors from sustainable growth — and knowing which ones are opportunities vs dead ends.

What new products can we expect from the platform?

We’re excited to continue building exceptional consumer experiences as the best place for filipino-friendly creators, aspiring PBB housemates, artists, musicians, magicians, BPO communities… our ‘kumuverse’ is filled with so many creative groups. We plan on building stronger Trust & Safety tools to keep our safe, authentic community healthy as well as new features that help friendships grow. You never know who you’ll meet on kumu!

The platform has been recently hinting on its international expansion, how does this affect your current product development?

The Philippines has often been the testing ground for companies looking to go international. This time, kumu has the homegrown advantage – building in the Philippines for the Philippines gives us the upper hand. 

What do you think are the new trends and opportunities in the live streaming space as we approach 2022?

The past few years gave the world an opportunity to see how quick and talented a creative content creator could be with viral trends! I’m encouraged by the democratization of content creation in this semi-crowdsourced format. In the next year, however, I want to pay special attention to the content creators that embrace the ‘build in public’ ethos. 

I think there’s a lot less appeal in the overly-manicured, picture-perfect social media – much of it isn’t representative, authentic, nor relatable. And after what a horrible year we’ve all had, it’s rather disingenuous. The beauty of live streaming is seeing it happen for real – building in public – even if that means ‘failing’ in public. 

You might see this manifest in broken soldering attempts in a live mechanical keyboard build, an eyeliner that’s out of ink during a makeup tutorial, or a meringue that just won’t look like the recipe book (disclaimer: I’ve absolutely done all three of these in the last year). I look forward to embracing the perfectly imperfect in each and every individual creator out there.

This recognition is based on the results of Google Analytics on the most-read stories of 2021 with editorial validation on the significance of a leader’s contribution, campaigns results, and overall impact.

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