Singapore – In the recent months, Society Pass or SoPa, the data-driven loyalty platform in SEA, has been ramping up its expansion in the region with a number of acquisitions; the most recent being MVNO Gorilla Networks in Singapore, and digital video multi-platform network Thoughtful Media in Bangkok. 

Today, SoPa marks a new buy-out under its group – Mangan.ph, the local restaurant delivery service in the Philippines. 

Founded in 2017, Mangan delivers restaurant food from over 1,200 partner restaurants to its over 500,000 registered users. According to the company, the delivery platform has generated more than 100,000 mobile app downloads to date. 

Operating in the country’s province Pampanga, Mangan’s geographic reach focuses on provincial areas and extends to 16 other cities such as Angeles City, San Fernando, Clark, Dau, Mabalacat, and Guagua among others. The newly acquired business will be integrated into SoPa’s F&B vertical, which includes Pushkart, which it acquired in February this year.

Country Manager of SoPa in the Philippines, Arbie Pagdangan, shared that they will be combining the robust technology and operational efficiency of Mangan with their own brand-building expertise. Combined with Pushkart, which delivers grocery food to consumers in Metro Manila, SoPa aims to create a food delivery behemoth to serve the Philippine market. 

“SoPa aims to double the number of registered users to over 800,000 and drive app downloads to over 200,000 by the end of 2023. We look forward to building out our next generation loyalty platform as well as opportunistically [acquiring] market leading companies in F&B, lifestyle, digital advertising and travel verticals in [the] Philippines for the rest of 2022,” said Pagdangan. 

Ralph Rile, co-founder and CEO of Mangan, commented, “When we started Mangan five years ago, our vision was to deliver delicious dishes from Pampanga’s wide array of cafes and restaurants right to our customer’s doorsteps in a hassle-free way. We have witnessed tremendous success in our initial goals, and now, aim to expand Mangan beyond Luzon Island to other regions in Philippines.”

“This is why joining forces with SoPa is our logical next step, and we are excited about the combined capabilities we will now bring to Mangan’s partners and customers,” added Rile. 

Louie Alcantara, co-founder and also chief technology officer of Mangan, added, “In a short span of time, with our easy-to-use technology interface, Mangan has established a reputation of being the top online local food delivery service, achieving over US$2 million in gross merchandise value yearly. Leveraging SoPa’s marketing platform and capital, we aim to increase GMV multiple fold by the end of 2022.”

Singapore – Society Pass (SoPa), the data-driven loyalty platform in SEA, has announced the acquisition of Thoughtful Media Group (Thoughtful Media), a social commerce-focused and premium digital video multi-platform network headquartered in Thailand which has an operating presence in the US, Vietnam, and the Philippines. 

The acquisition of Thoughtful Media marks SoPa’s first foray into Thailand and adds to SoPa’s growing ecosystem of technology-enabled companies located in the SEA countries of Vietnam, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. Just recently, SoPa has also acquired Singapore-based Gorilla Networks, a next-generation Web3-enabled MVNO.

Thoughtful Media creates and distributes digital advertising campaigns across its MPN in both SEA and the US. Advertisers leverage Thoughtful Media’s wide influencer network throughout SEA to market and sell advertising inventory exclusively with specific placement and ‘effect’. 

Thoughtful Media’s social commerce platform will be amplifying the reach and engagement of SoPa’s e-commerce ecosystem and retail partners. With this acquisition, SoPa aims to increase customer engagement whilst also focusing on the quality of relationships through a campaign-based approach enabled by this synergistic acquisition.

Specifically, Thoughtful Media’s digital advertising tools and expertise bolsters Society Points, SoPa’s paradigm-shifting loyalty platform. Through data-driven marketing campaigns, advertisers of all types utilise Society Points’ proprietary 1st party data to improve the targeting, efficacy, and efficiency of their digital marketing spend. SoPa’s product offering is seen to uniquely position Thoughtful Media as a leading SEA retail marketing and advertising hub for international and regional consumer brands.

Dennis Nguyen, SoPa founder, chairman, and CEO commented, “We are thrilled to have Thoughtful Media join the ever-expanding SoPa ecosystem. Thoughtful Media’s social commerce-focused business model perfectly complements our future growth strategy for Society Pass as we drive consumer eyeballs and generate revenues for riveting consumer brands throughout Southeast Asia. In addition, Society Pass is excited to complete our first Thailand acquisition and look forward to launching our SoPa loyalty platform to the 65 million consumers in Thailand”.

Meanwhile, Dan Thorman, Thoughtful Media CEO, said, “Partnering with Society Pass allows Thoughtful Media to unlock strategic opportunities with influencers and advertisers as well as design cross-marketing synergies for companies in the SoPa ecosystem. In doing so, we expect to drive tremendous revenue growth in 2022 and beyond.”

Singapore – Society Pass (SoPa), the data-driven loyalty and e-commerce ecosystem in SEA, has acquired Singapore-based Gorilla Networks (Gorilla), a next-generation Web3-enabled MVNO.

Established in Singapore in 2019, Gorilla utilises Web3 technology to operate an MVNO for its users in Southeast Asia. With network coverage to over 160 countries, Gorilla offers a full suite of mobile communication services such as local calls, international roaming, data, and SMS texting. Moreover, Gorilla enables its customers to convert unused mobile data into digital assets or Gorilla GO Tokens through its proprietary blockchain-based SwitchBack feature. 

Dennis Nguyen, SoPa founder, chairman and CEO, explained, “We are excited to make our first acquisition in Singapore, and welcome Gorilla into our SoPa family. Gorilla’s technology platform aligns well with our acquisition strategy as we incorporate Gorilla’s blockchain and Web3 capabilities onto the SoPa ecosystem and enable the new meta-economy for all our portfolio companies.” 

“From our Leflair lifestyle e-commerce platform to our Pushkart/Handycart F&B delivery services, as we roll out the Society Pass loyalty platform in the coming months, we leverage Gorilla’s technology to drive customer retention for merchants and create innovative revenue models for our ecosystem,” added Nguyen.

With the rebound of the travel market throughout Southeast Asia, Gorilla expects to dramatically increase its customer base by marketing to the region’s business and leisure travellers with its user-friendly technology platform. It plans to expand its MVNO services offering to Vietnam, Thailand, and Malaysia over the next 12 months.

“When we started Gorilla Networks three years ago, our vision was to build a democratised mobile communications service platform where users regardless of nationality, home location or mobile subscription plans can access essential telecoms services such as roaming and mobile data anywhere and everywhere throughout the world. Gorilla is currently transitioning existing web 2 telco services onto the web3 economy by tokenising mobile data as digital assets,” said Xanne Leo, founder and CEO of Gorilla Networks.

“In 2021, we digitised eSIMS, data plans, and mobile numbers as NFTs, which dramatically transformed how our users purchase, interact and experience mobile services. By joining forces with SoPa’s extensive ecosystem and large user base in Southeast Asia, we are thrilled about the combined marketing capabilities we will now bring collectively to our partners and customers,” added Xanne Leo. 

For our Empowered Women Series last March, we sat down with the women leaders of SoPa – PH Country Manager Abie Pagdanganan and CEO Pamela Aw-Young. 

Pagdanganan shared about the platform’s goals, “So our business on the consumer-facing side, we aim to integrate everything that you need into just one ecosystem. This is where consumers can easily search books or order anything they want or need, through our values interconnected that works.”