{"id":336842,"date":"2017-03-27T16:42:54","date_gmt":"2017-03-27T08:42:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techcrunch.com\/?p=1469106"},"modified":"2017-03-27T16:42:54","modified_gmt":"2017-03-27T08:42:54","slug":"snapcart-raises-3m-to-track-offline-commerce-data-in-southeast-asia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/snapcart-raises-3m-to-track-offline-commerce-data-in-southeast-asia\/","title":{"rendered":"Snapcart raises $3M to track offline commerce data in Southeast Asia"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Snapcart<\/a>, a startup helping to bring transparency to the world of offline commerce in Southeast Asia, has raised $3 million in pre-Series A funding.<\/p>\n

We first wrote about the company when it launched in September 2015<\/a>\u00a0with the aim of providing data on the largely uncharted world of offline commerce in Southeast Asia, a region of over 600 million consumers and a growing middle class. Snapcart gathers shopper and purchase data\u00a0by incentivizing consumers to upload\u00a0their shopping receipts into its app in exchange for cash-back rewards. That information is\u00a0then turned into consumer insight and reports for its roster of 75-plus brands,\u00a0which includes L\u2019Orreal, Nestle and Unilever.<\/p>\n

The potential growth of e-commerce attracts the headlines in Southeast Asia, with Alibaba making moves and Amazon poised to jump in this year<\/a>, but there\u2019s another growth area since the region\u2019s long tail of physical retailers is scattered, offline and hard to track.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a blackhole and brands don\u2019t know what is happening,\u201d Reynazran Royono, Snapcart CEO and founder \u2014 and a former consultant with Proctor and Gamble and Boston Consulting \u2014\u00a0told TechCrunch.<\/p>\n

Snapcart raised $1.7 million in January 2016<\/a>,\u00a0and this new financing\u00a0is designed to push it towards a Series A round before the end of this year. This $3 million raise\u00a0is led by new investor\u00a0Vickers Venture Partners with participation from existing backers Wavemaker Partners\u00a0and\u00a0SPH Media Fund, the investment arm of Singapore Press Holdings.<\/p>\n

Over the past year, Snapcart has expanded from its launch market of Indonesia into the Philippines.\u00a0Manila is where the startup\u00a0houses its artificial intelligence and data analysis team, which perfects the systems behind its OCR (optical character recognition) technology that\u00a0identifies line items within shopping receipts.<\/p>\n

\u201cReceipts form different formats across the countries where we collect them so there\u2019s a lot of processes done to decrypt them: translating into text, making sure it is accurate and that we understand what is written,\u201d Royono said in an interview. \u201cWe really invest a lot because we want to make sure the data we capture is captured in a high quality manner.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beyond that market expansion, Snapcart has opened a business development office in Singapore, but its service isn\u2019t currently active in the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe see a Singapore representation office as being very important because it is where we manage those regional client relationships,\u201d Royono\u00a0said.<\/p>\n

Royono revealed\u00a0the company is currently undertaking due diligence over its next regional expansion. Thailand is likely to be that market, but the company is yet to officially make a move.<\/p>\n

Quality Over Quantity<\/h2>\n

Unlike most tech companies,\u00a0Snapcart isn\u2019t obsessing about getting large numbers of\u00a0downloads of its mobile app. Royono said it tries to cap its active user base at around 50,000 in each market because it wants it to be representative of a country\u2019s entire population.\u00a0So, if Jakarta makes up 35 percent of Indonesia\u2019s population, then Snapcart aspires to have 35 percent of its userbase in Indonesia located in\u00a0the city.<\/p>\n

A panel of 50,000 consumers would be more than multiples larger than the audience size traditional consumer insight researchers use, but\u00a0Snapcart also has the advantage of near-instant data capture. Rather than taking months to conduct surveys and publish results, as is traditional for this kind of research, its clients have access to last week\u2019s data at any time. It also offers more granular insight, for instance based on specific outlets, and\u00a0can track longer term trends, such as the impact of\u00a0promotional campaigns.<\/p>\n

Instead, repeat usage\u00a0is the key metric for the company.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe longer the users stay and snap receipts consistently [then] the data becomes more robust, and we can create more analysis from that trail of data,\u201d\u00a0Royono said, revealing that Snapcart has an impressive 45 percent monthly active user\u00a0retention rate after 30 days.<\/p>\n

Repetitive user behavior also allows Snapcart to model predictions, giving it another area of data and research to foray into beyond more standard reports.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a lot of new services we can up-sell to our current clients, [and will] focus on that first before we expand to new clients,\u201d\u00a0Royono explained.<\/p>\n

Already, though, that existing client base is pushing Snapcart to expand across Asia and beyond into other parts of the world. The company is taking a planned and managed approach to ensure its service quality remains high, so don\u2019t expand global moves just yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cSoutheast Asia is going be our domain for now [but] demand is there whenever we talk to clients,\u201d\u00a0Royono said. \u201cLatin America and Africa is where they feel there\u2019s a gap in consumer data. But\u2019s\u00a0complicated to think about those markets right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Featured Image: Brian A Jackson<\/a>\/Shutterstock<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"\" Snapcart, a startup helping to bring transparency to the world of offline commerce in Southeast Asia, has raised $3 million in pre-Series A funding. We first wrote about the company when it launched in September 2015\u00a0with the aim of providing data on the largely uncharted world of offline commerce in Southeast Asia, a region of over 600 million consumers and a growing middle class.… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n

\n<\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n

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