Jakarta, Indonesia – Local e-commerce giant Bukalapak has announced that it is acquiring a majority stake in Malaysian price comparison platform iPrice, giving the latter the opportunity to accelerate its growth by leveraging the synergies between the two groups.

iPrice will continue to operate as an independent entity, maintaining its neutral position towards users, and working with a broad set of merchants and sellers.

Amidst a cooling fundraising market of last year, iPrice’s investors–including Itochu and Naver–have welcomed the deal. It should be recalled that iPrice was forced to scale back on several aspects of its business and downsize the team substantially as it transformed to explore new ways to grow the businesses cost-effectively.

The new investment by Bukalapak is part of the company’s objective to shift its focus from competing head-to-head with other marketplaces, to building or acquiring niche marketplaces and accelerating their growth.

Heinrich Wendel, co-founder of iPrice, said, “We are excited to join forces with Bukalapak and benefit from the group’s synergies. This partnership will allow us to expand our services to help even more users save money across new verticals, like Gaming, and geographies, like Australia.”

Meanwhile, Willix Halim, CEO of Bukalapak, commented, “I’ve known David and the team for years and have always been excited about their work, then recently the opportunity emerged to work together more closely. With Bukalapak’s extensive expertise in e-commerce and iPrice’s loyal user base and proprietary technology, we are confident that we can unlock the platform’s full potential.”

Singapore — Giift, a provider of loyalty management solutions, has announced it has acquired majority ownership in Loyolink Marketing, a loyalty, lifestyle privileges, and incentive provision space.

Giift and Loyolink’s combined efforts will expand their service offerings across Giift’s client base and Giift affiliate network, in the GCC but also in other geographies and jointly increase loyalty engagement added value.

On the acquisition, Laurent Xatart, co-founder of Giift, said, “Adding Loyolink to the Giift ecosystem will strategically enrich our offer and allow us to leverage our existing Giift products and services, opening up new possibilities for our customers that are unique in the market.”

Simultaneously, another co-founder of Giift, Pascal Xatart, commented, “Loyolink will enable Giift clients to engage more effectively and more personally with their customers.”

Xatart added, “Enhancing the Giift customer experience portfolio with Loyolink will create a new paradigm for how commerce is managed digitally as it will deliver a higher personalization, helping organizations ensure every engagement is relevant and impactful.”

Meanwhile, Naresh Handa, co-founder and CEO Loyolink Marketing, shared, “I am personally very excited to see that Loyolink’s pool of knowledge, best industry practices, and merchant partner nuances can now be shared across Giift’s global presence in countries like Americas, APEC, MENA, and Europe.”