m-commerce is getting hot in Southeast Asia and especially in Thailand, where people love to check and do everything on their smartphones frequently. But not so many startups are really paying a big attention to mobile or go mobile-only approach. Let have a look on the two promising mobile startups in the Thai ecommerce space.
Eatigo: time-based discounted restaurant platform
- Target customers and market
Current targeting eateries in Singapore and Thailand and will be expanding to some more countries in Asia.
- Business model
Off-peak hour discounted reservation platform for restaurant
- Product/service unique selling points or competitive advantages
A discounted mobile platform for eateries to find promotional lunches and dinners off the peak hours. Restaurants can also set the discount prices for different hours to fulfill their empty times.
- Current traction & status
Eatigo app was downloaded 200.000+ and got more than 350 restaurants to join it platform with the names like Kudeta, Sheraton, Hilton, Marriott, Holiday Inn…
- Team
The founding team has an impressive number of six co-founders and a good mix of Westerners and Asians. They have worked in the large MNC companies in F&B, Hospitality and FMCG industries.
Michael Gluzel cofounder/CEO is a German who has been working across five countries in Asia (four in Southeast Asia) and also worked in Europe and America.
- Investors and Money raised till date and/or fund-raising range in the next 12 months
Eatigo is bootrapping and raising it’s series A for around $US 2M
- Startup’s pros and cons
Eatigo has a monetizable business model and doesn’t have to face much competition, at least in Thailand and Singapore right now. As Thailand FineSeat and Singapore’s Chope are paying more focus on general restaurant reservation and their booking are not time-based. However the set of diners and lunchers who are ready to eat off the normal time are still small. But who know how big is it in the future?
Another similar player with Eatigo is OffPeak is coming from Malaysia after getting $800k from Gobi Partners.
ShoppingIS – curated fashion discovery platform
The following information is mostly shared from Kong – co-founder/CEO of ShoppingIS.
- Target customers & Market:
- Mostly focus in Thailand market and Thai customers shopping via smartphone.
- Business Model :
- ShoppingIS is a visual discovery platform for fashion products. User can discover interesting products, curate the products they like into a collection and share it with friends and followers. Or even buy it inside our app.
- Product/Service unique selling points or competitive advantages
- We have a machine learning in place to learn what this particular user like and our feed will try to send the products that based on preference of that users. And as our user engage more to the app we learn more and strengthen our algorithm.
- Differences:
- Most of the players here are trying to be a online retailer. But we focus to be a discovery tool to help customer discover and shop easier on mobile
Current traction and status:- I prefer not to reveal the exact number but our user base are growing every months
- We have launched for several months ago. Still trying to improve our user experience and currently have only iPhone app
- Team profiles
Kong co-founder/CEO used to be a pilot and a passionate online entrepreneur. He started an ecommerce startup before ShoppingIS. His tech co-founder is a CMU grad, his school is very strong in artificial intelligence.
- Investors and money raised till date
ShoppingIs just got an un-disclosed amount from Wai Thanawat – CEO of Priceza, a leading price comparison site in Thailand and aggressively expanding to Indonesia, Malaysia…
- Pros and cons
- Pros: As we try to be a tool rather than try to sell something. We won’t annoy our user much.
- Cons: It takes time and resource to build a platform and network of users and products.
And you, what do you think about these startups? Leave your comment here to share your thought!