Saiyai Sakawee · · 1 min readThai bookstore Ookbee gets $7 million funding to continue Southeast Asia expansion
Thailand’s Ookbee, which claims to be Southeast Asia’s number one ebookstore startup based on app downloads, has received a series B investment from Tokyo-based IT outsourcing firm Transcosmos. The amount of investment for a 10 percent stake of the company’s outstanding shares is undisclosed, but Tech in Asia has heard that the sum is supposedly around 200 million Baht (US$7 million). This would value the company at approximately US$70 million.
With this deal, Transcosmos will be holding equity in the startup together with Thai VC InVent, a company under Intouch (previously known as Shin Corporation), which holds 25 percent of the company.
The strategic partnership will involve Transcosmos assisting Ookbee in online marketing and data analytics.
Ookbee is now available in Vietnam, Malaysia, Philippines and Singapore. It calls itself the largest ebookstore in Southeast Asia with over 6.5 million downloads of its app so far.
The startup recently launched Ookbee Me, which is a buffet style emagazine service, in Thailand. The price starts at 89 Baht (US$3) per month.
Rakuten’s Kobo, Thai telco Dtac’s Readever, and FlipReads are among other ebookstore competitors in the region.
(See: Indobooks offers Netflix for magazines through Telkomsel partnership)
Editing by Terence Lee
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