ShopBack plans to simplify shopping with new US$45m funding

Cashback reward app ShopBack has secured US$45m in its latest funding round with new investors such as co-leads EV Growth and Rakuten Capital, as well as government-linked strategic investor EDBI, along with other existing investors. The new capital injection brings the company’s total funding to US$83m. Amit Patel, CEO of Rakuten company Ebates, and Willson Cuaca, managing partner of EV Growth, will join ShopBack’s board of directors. ShopBack’s new round of funding will be deployed into simplifying shopping experiences, expanding data capabilities to fuel personalisation and business insights, as well as accelerating growth in key markets. The company remains focused on building rewards and discovery features to enhance both online and offline shopping experiences for consumers across the Asia Pacific region. Apart from rewarding users with cashback for making online purchases, ShopBack has created features to improve users’ buying experiences. Launched in partnership with Visa and Mastercard, its latest product, ShopBack GO, enables users to dine out and get paid, and empowers F&B operators to make better business decisions with data insight provided by ShopBack. ShopBack has presence across multiple lifestyle categories in the online space including e-commerce, online travel, ride hailing, and food delivery. Growing into the offline space, the company will be well-positioned to deliver smart shopping solutions tailored to consumers’ evolving purchase habits both online and offline, according to the company. Being able to view users’ digital wallet expenditure across multiple markets, platforms, and categories also enables ShopBack to deliver personalised shopping experiences for its users, as well as targeted and cost-effective marketing solutions for its merchant partners. Henry Chan, CEO and co-founder of ShopBack said its "rapidly growing" pool of users is a "strong testament" to the value the company brings to merchant partners and consumers in APAC. He added that ShopBack will "continuously innovate" on solutions to make shopping "smarter, faster, and better". Patel said: “Rakuten is committed to empowering great companies around the world and I’m incredibly excited to join as a member to the ShopBack board. ShopBack has established itself as a strong leader across the Asia Pacific region and has a rare combination of dedicated customer service, a passionate customer base and an extremely talented team. Rakuten looks forward to support the ShopBack team to accelerate its next stage of growth.” “We are constantly energised by ShopBack’s rapid growth since its early days. Its dedication to continuous product innovation and excellence is tremendous. We are excited for ShopBack to maximise Asia Pacific’s extraordinary growth potential and propel further," said Cuaca. Read also: ShopBack sees rise in travel booking online, growth driven by mobile app ShopBack acquires finance management platform Seedly