Singapore – Fintech firm MatchMove has acquired Singapore-based e-commerce startup Shopmatic for US$200m. The combined company will enable MatchMove to provide its banking-as-a-service capabilities to Shopmatic’s ecosystem of over a million e-commerce SME customers.

This deal is the first in a series of planned acquisitions for MatchMove to create an end-to-end service for companies in Southeast Asia aiming to digitalise their offerings. MatchMove has grown its presence rapidly across Southeast Asia in recent times and has customers across Singapore, India, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Philippines and Vietnam.

MatchMove’s platform provides customisable, fast, secure and regulated embedded financial services, such as banking-in-an-app, powered by APIs, to help enterprise firms offer richer services to their SME customers. Meanwhile, Shopmatic offers small businesses an e-commerce presence, complete with chat, social media, a webstore and automated access to the world’s largest e-marketplaces.

The combined entity will operate under the MatchMove Group name, while retaining their individual customer-facing brands for the immediate period. Shopmatic CEO Anurag Avula, will continue to lead the Shopmatic business while Shailesh Naik, CEO at MatchMove, will helm the Singapore-headquartered group as it seeks to add further complementary acquisitions to its stable of SaaS infrastructure solutions.

Naik said, “Shopmatic has built an amazing business and team with proven ecommerce tools which support SMEs to trade online. The acquisition provides a large user base to deploy our financial services, reaching a huge sector of the economy at scale. Enterprise customers can now completely digitalise their supply chains – providing services like supply chain lending and vendor payments through a single platform to Shopmatic’s ecosystem of SME customers.”

Meanwhile, Avula commented, “We are building a scalable, business-friendly platform-as-a-service with intelligent tools and data, so every business has the ability to create amazing products to address their markets and while addressing the challenges of moving digital money securely.”

He added, “MatchMove plans to provide modular services, so customers can select and tailor the digital services they need to deliver their commercial objectives. In addition to their existing e-commerce services, Shopmatic merchants will now be able to access embedded banking-as-a-service through MatchMove, enabling their buyers to make and collect payments seamlessly and at a lower cost.”

Singapore – Shopmatic has announced an exclusive partnership with VMLY&R, the global brand and customer experience agency, to launch a co-branded commerce platform, a one-click, channel-neutral commerce solution for WPP’s client partners.

The agreement will make VMLY&R the only agency or consulting network to deliver an end-to-end commerce solution to clients, from its Commercial Growth Consulting offering to completing actual transactions and last-mile logistics.

Through the partnership, VMLY&R will be rolling out solution stacks on the platform that span from social through rural commerce, with general trade commerce on-boarding by the end of the year.

“The partnership with VMLY&R gives us access to the world’s largest companies, such as Unilever, Kraft Heinz, Ford, and Swaraj Tractors, and more importantly, comes with VMLY&R’s ability to drive volume and value through our co-branded platform,” commented Anurag Avula, Shopmatic’s co-founder and CEO.

Hari Ramanathan, the chief strategy and transformation officer at VMLY&R Asia, said that partnering with Shopmatic allows them to move clients to very margin-friendly direct-to-consumer and third-party models.

“Combined with our existing growth-hacking solution for marketplaces, we can co-own commercial outcomes with brand owners, rather than simply selling our products and services. With Shopmatic, we are entering a new era for commerce partnerships with clients,” said Ramanathan. 

Beth Ann Kaminkow, VMLY&R Commerce’s global CEO and VMLY&R New York’s CEO, noted, “With Shopmatic’s diverse commerce platforms, be it chat, social, webstores, or marketplaces, we can now offer our clients solutions in all the places their customers are, not only streamlining the experience but improving every interaction a customer has with our clients’ brands.”

According to Shopmatic, in its seven years of operations, the platform has onboarded one million merchants and clocked US$400m in gross merchandise value (GMV), and is set on its path to cross the five million merchants mark over the next three years with US$3b GMV.

The new co-branded commerce platform will be launching in India by the end of this year and will roll out globally shortly after.

Singapore – Singapore-based e-commerce enabler Shopmatic is pushing the needle forward for SMEs with its ‘Inspiring Entrepreneurship Program’. The program waives sign-up fees for SMEs looking to avail of Shopmatic’s services, namely, Shopmatic Webstore, Shopmatic Chat, Shopmatic Social, and Shopmatic Marketplaces.

The zero hosting charges will run within the period of 90 days which means that the offer is effective for any SME signing up between 3 June and 31 August 2021.

An event which aims to drive entrepreneurship, the ‘Inspiring Entrepreneurship Program’ seeks to further encourage aspiring entrepreneurs and small business owners to take their business online by letting them use the platform’s services, including 60 odd template options for their e-store, shipping integration, and network linkages, among others.

For the said 90-day period, merchants will be able to use the entire Shopmatic platform for setting up their e-commerce presence and will only have to pay a nominal fee of 3% per transaction whenever they make a sale. 

Shopmatic’s CEO and Co-Founder Anurag Avula commented that the latest initiative is part of their continued effort to support businesses in the current challenging environment.

“This initiative has helped many businesses during this challenging time by creating an alternate revenue stream. The business categories supported in this initiative include packaged F&B, groceries, fashion, toys, sportswear, cosmetics, jewellery, and organic products,” said Avula.

Shopmatic, aside from its headquarters in Singapore, has presence in India, Hong Kong, China, Malaysia, Philippines, and UAE.

Singapore – Singapore-based e-commerce enabler Shopmatic has revealed that it is eyeing further expansion in Southeast Asia. 

Shopmatic, which offers various solutions for SMEs to establish their online store, is currently serving SEA markets Singapore and Malaysia, with a presence in Hong Kong, and India. 

In the nine months into 2020, the company has reported a revenue of over S$7M, between the period of April to December, exceeding its targets by 40%.

According to a press release, Shopmatic has witnessed great demand from customers in its markets, a testament to the digital wave which has been accelerated due to the effects of COVID-19. This led the company to introduce new solutions in response.

In April 2020, Shopmatic focused its efforts on providing managed solutions through one of its locally acquired companies, multichannel e-commerce solution CombineSell, in an aim to help move Singapore SMEs online by providing them an opportunity to outsource their digital team. A month after, Shopmatic launched a special solution for grocery or ‘kirana’ stores to go online and found great adoption from businesses across India and Singapore.

Speaking on what 2021 holds for Shopmatic, Co-founder and CEO Anurag Avula, said, “We are very happy that we were able to close 2020 on a hugely positive note and are now able to step into 2021 with even more aggressive plans to digitize local businesses and entrepreneurs in Singapore, India, Malaysia & Hong Kong.” 

Avula added, “We continue to make significant investments behind key resources to be able to drive our organization to the next level and expand footprint into new markets in South East Asia. At Shopmatic, our focus is to build a sustainable & profitable business and we are delighted that we’ve been able to reach this significant milestone a year ahead of plan.”

The company revealed that it is in advanced discussions with several investors for a Series B fund raise. Just very recently, Shopmatic has launched a whole new range of solutions allowing SMEs to choose from four different ways to run e-commerce via Shopmatic Chat, Shopmatic Social, Shopmatic Webstore, and Shopmatic Marketplaces.

Singapore – Singapore-born e-commerce company Shopmatic has announced the launch of four new solutions and platforms for small-medium enterprises (SMEs) looking to expand into emerging markets.

First on their releases is Shopmatic Chat, which allows SMEs to be connected and sell to their customers via Chat such as WhatsApp, Telegram,  and  Line, among others Via the feature, SMEs will also be able to do their customer interactions via Shopmatic Social on Facebook and  Instagram. 

Meanwhile, sellers can also venture out their marketplace to various marketplaces like Amazon, Lazada, and Shopee through Shopmatic’s MarketPlaces. This then allows sellers to control all of their multiple marketplace presence all through one dashboard by Shopmatic.

Another new solution, Shopmatic Webstore, allows sellers to create a web store ecosystem, complete with all features like payment and shipping integrations, chat and social selling, multiple beautiful templates, and domain name.

Aside from the four platforms released, Shopmatic is also working on a Single Checkout link, to which the sellers can  share across their multiple marketplace presence. This then allows the buyer less interaction with the seller, ensuring improved conversion rates.

“With years of working closely with small and medium business owners and individual entrepreneurs, we understand the unique needs of different sets of customers. We realise that offering a one solution approach for all sellers makes it challenging for some sellers and caters to a small segment of merchants in emerging markets. With the new solution, we are extremely excited that we can now bring in millions of sellers in the emerging markets into the eCommerce ecosystem,” said Anurag Avula, co-founder and CEO of  Shopmatic.

He also added, “We are delighted with the exciting innovations of four different eCommerce solutions and the Single Checkout Link that will enable sellers to be successful easier and faster. We believe this to be game-changing in our continued desire to support sellers with unique and relevant eCommerce solutions.”

The new solutions are available in the Shopmatic platform for a fee of SGD 1 per month of hosting, or SGD 20 for a year of subscription.