Singapore Press Holdings sets up another freelance services venture with Chinese unicorn

Photo credit: Pexels.

Media company Singapore Press Holdings announced today that its subsidiary, Singapore Press Holdings Interactive (SPHI), has entered in a joint venture with China-based Chongqing Zhubajie. The Chinese company is a crowdsourcing website offering a range of freelance services.

The deal between the two results in a new company called ZBJ-SPH. SPHI holds 2 million shares in the venture, for a 40 percent stake. According to the announcement, ZBJ-SPH will operate “an online B2B creative services marketplace which connects freelance/small-medium enterprise service providers with buyers of services such as website design, brand/logo design and translation.”

The marketplace, which will launch in September, will be called ZomWork. It will allow business clients to compare portfolios and prices of verified local agencies and freelancers. The tie-up with Zhubajie allows ZomWork access to the Chinese company’s pool of professional service providers.

“We’ve seen a lot of demand and support for ZomWork even before launch, especially from companies needing help in design, marketing, printing, and IT,” says Jason Teo, general manager of ZBJ-SPH. The services are similar to what Zhubajie offers in China, and also include copywriting, translation, video and animation, and more.

This isn’t the first joint venture that SPHI has launched with a freelance services provider. Last month, the company announced a deal with Malaysia-headquartered RecomN, to launch small business directory Recommend.sg.

Zhubajie raised US$386 million in 2015 from Beijing-based tech investor Cybernaut, with part of the funding coming from the local government in the startup’s base of Chongqing. Founded in 2006 by former journalist Zhu Mingyue, Zhubajie is valued at US$1.6 billion and counted 16 million registered users in 2016, according to the South China Morning Post.

It plans to go public within the year and become an “incubator” for smaller businesses who want to get off the ground.

Update, 29/7: Updated with additional details including the name of the marketplace and a quote from general manager Jason Teo.

Converted by Chinese yuan. US$1 = RMB 6.7