- Premium Content It takes our newsroom weeks - if not months - to investigate and produce stories for our premium content. You can’t find them anywhere else.
Collin Furtado · · 4 min readWhy Seedly is moving on from ShopBack and joining CompareAsiaGroup
Seedly, a Singapore-based personal finance platform for millennials, is changing hands.
Two years after ShopBack acquired Seedly for around US$2.1 million, according to VentureCap Insights, it is now selling the company to Hong Kong-based CompareAsiaGroup, a personal finance platform that has raised US$110 million from investors.
Seedly co-founder and CEO Kenneth Lou told Tech in Asia that the sale amounted to a “meaningful upside for the ShopBack group”. In addition, he reveals that CompareAsiaGroup is putting more money into Seedly to further grow its user base.
Founded in 2016, Seedly developed an app that helps users track their spending habits. Eventually, it became a content destination.
Since ShopBack bought the company in 2018, Seedly claims to have grown 3x in terms of reach and visitors to attract 1.1 million unique visitors, mainly in Singapore. While it has an editorial team, the bulk of its content consists of 110,000 or so user-generated reviews, questions, answers, and comments from its community.
Seedly has been focused on expanding its reach. As such, it made only around US$68,000 in revenue and lost US$606,000 for the financial year ending in March 2019, according to VentureCap Insights.
The company is now ready to monetize, launching a subscription model similar to what Tripadvisor or Glassdoor uses. Personal finance and utility businesses pay Seedly a monthly fee of S$599 (US$440) to update profile pages and manage reviews left by customers for each product. It has 12 pre-launch customers, out of what Lou reckons to be over 600 financial and utility products in Singapore alone.
He envisions building deeper commercial relationships with large financial institutions that manage plenty of products. Seedly also anticipates making money from events and branded content, and it has begun experimenting with government agencies on several marketing campaigns.
Reasons behind the deal
The acquisition of Seedly gives CompareAsiaGroup a window into the much-coveted millennial demographic. It has developed communities where people can improve their financial literacy and financial health.
Lou says that Seedly could tie in nicely with the group’s Ekos Connect, a service that helps financial services manage their affiliate marketing efforts and transfer data in a secure fashion. It is also looking to tap into CompareAsia Group’s relationships with over 200 financial institutions.
Why did ShopBack sell Seedly?
Stay ahead in Asia’s tech landscape
This is premium content. Subscribe to read the full story.
After four years within the ShopBack fold, Seedly has a new parent as it aims to be a Tripadvisor for personal finance.
We know this is not ideal. ⌛ Sign up in 20 seconds. Cancel anytime.
Our subscriber community includes professionals from these companies:
Stay updated on the go with our mobile app.
Get latest insights with smoother, more personalized experience through TIA mobile app.
