ShopBack raises another US$25m in funding

Cashback service ShopBack has raised US$25 million in its latest funding round, bringing the company’s total funding raised to date close to US$40 million. The round was led by Credit Saison, the largest credit card and retail finance company in Japan.The company said however the new round of funding will be used to drive three key initiatives which is invest in product development, entrench base presence in current markets and grow talent pool. When asked about Marketing initiatives, a spokesperson said: "We'll still remain prudent with our marketing spend in spite of the fresh round of funding,"“Cashback served as the cornerstone for ShopBack’s establishment in Singapore and laid the foundation for us to build smarter shopping solutions,” said Henry Chan, chief executive officer and co-founder of ShopBack.“Living up to our value proposition as ‘The Smarter Way’, we have recently added service aggregation features for the rides and credit cards verticals to simplify purchase decisions for our users. We strive to become the one-stop shopping and lifestyle portal for consumers in the Asia Pacific,” he said.According to the company, ShopBack powers close to 1,000 orders per hour, with an annualised sales figure of over US$300 million for more than 1,300 partner merchants across the online retail, travel and lifestyle verticals. Over three and half million consumers across six countries in the Asia Pacific have signed up with ShopBack since the company’s inception in 2014.ShopBack’s presence in six countries is driven by a team of more than 130 people. The management team hails from ecommerce and technology background with experience in scaling companies across the region.It is currently led by Vincent Wong, country head of ShopBack Singapore who kick-started his career at Groupon where he learnt the ropes of the trade for four years before he left to find his own logistics and ecommerce start-up. Wong further sharpened his skills during the two years managing his company before joining ShopBack as the country head in Singapore.ShopBack believes rapid and effective localisation is critical for players operating in a fragmented region such as the Asia Pacific. While its core service offering remains the same across geographies, different marketing and product strategies are adopted to better address the needs of customers in each market.More than 10 institutional investors participated in the round, including new investors Blue Sky, AppWorks, Intouch Holdings PLC , Aetius Capital and 33 Capital, as well as existing investors SoftBank Ventures Korea, Singtel Innov8, Qualgro and East Ventures.