iMedia takes on social commerce scene with Favful acquisition

Digital media company iMedia is entering the social commerce scene with a full acquisition in Lovelife Technologies, owner and operator of beauty eCommerce and influencer marketing company Favful. Under the agreement, iMedia will be responsible for the acceleration of revenue for Lovelife Technologies' influencer advertising unit as well as branded content. It will also be tasked to generate lifestyle content and engagement around Favful's website and social media platforms. As part of the deal, all social media assets from Lovelife Technologies will be fully merged into iMedia’s ecosystem.

Founded in 2016 and headquartered in Petaling Jaya, Favful combines crowd intelligence from its community preference intelligence generated through machine learning. The company added that its social commerce platform is dedicated to helping users feel stress-free in their online beauty shopping experience.

According to iMedia, the acquisition is one of the company’s key strategies for growth, and marks its first entry into the commerce business. The group added that this goes in line with its mission of becoming Malaysia’s number one integrated digital media group. One of the key areas of focus is to accelerate Favful’s and all of iMedia’s brands’ social and live commerce initiatives and expanding beyond the beauty lifestyle segment. 

According to CEO and co-founder of iMedia, Voon Tze Khay (pictured left), the current technology behind Favful’s platform allows it to analyse the sentiments of both users’ and the community’s voices, providing the opportunity to understand their interest and demand better. “This will now be extended to the online websites of iMedia to deliver more targeted content that are relevant to our users”, he added.

Over the last 12 months, iMedia has confirmed six acquisitions including Favful. The other five are namely OhMedia, Ittify, Goody25, BeautifulNara and most recently Moretify last December. According to iMedia, the combined following of its network of owned and managed websites now reaches over 15 million Malaysians every month. It also has video streaming partnerships with Viu, WeTV, and iflix. In September last year, iMedia entered a share sale agreement with Rev Asia, with the latter acquiring a 100% stake in iMedia for approximately RM40 million, subject to completion and approval from regulators. 

Sasha Tan (pictured right), CEO and founder of Favful, said that joining iMedia in its mission to build the number one integrated digital group in Malaysia “presents Favful with a solid case to be part of the iMedia family”. She added that Favful has grown into a trusted community marketplace, housing over 3,000 beauty and lifestyle influencer members and has an estimated reach of more than 140 million on social media. By integrating this reach with iMedia's existing influencer agency ITTIFY, the combined social media audience reach is well-over 170 million, said Tan.

Voon said with its audience network and distribution strength, iMedia is confident to expand Favful’s community to become a fully integrated digital platform in the media, commerce and influencer marketing business. Voon added that this will seek to provide its customers and consumers with “solutions and experience that matters”. 

Most recently in March this year, iMedia and EcoWorld offered up to RM1,000,000 in digital media advertising to support local businesses. The grant was given to local business owners that either leased or purchased a unit at any of EcoWorld’s 13 participating commercial properties in the Klang Valley, Iskandar Malaysia or Penang. This was part of the #BinaBersama (build together) campaign, first launched by iMedia in August last year. The initial round of the initiative saw iMedia handing out RM500,000 in media inventory to selected businesses.

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