Commerce.Asia eCommerce Solution for SMEs; Targets To Raise RM100 million in Investments
Commerce.Asia Ventures (“Commerce.Asia”), Malaysian commerce technology venture builder, today announces the launch of its flagship offering Commerce.Asia Enterprise, that is developed with the specific purpose of enabling Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), to quickly move their business online.
Ganesh Kumar Bangah, the Executive Chairman and founder of Commerce.Asia says, “There is great potential for eCommerce to be the economic booster for the country as the Malaysian digital economy already accounts for 18.2 percent of the country’s GDP as of 2016. However, although 90 percent of Malaysian businesses are SMEs, only 28 percent have an online presence.
The technical complexities of setting up an online store and operating multiple marketplace accounts is simply too challenging for many SMEs and this affects their success in running an online business.”
Commerce.Asia Enterprise will be an accelerator in the ongoing efforts to push the nation’s digital economy growth which is at a crucial stage, by helping Malaysia’s SME venture into eCommerce in line with the government’s Digital Free Trade Zone initiative.
Arming Malaysian SMEs
“While the industry has many more enablers today, there is still no easy way for a business to move online. In order to have an online presence, SMEs need to build a virtual store which is payment gateway ready, select shipping and delivery partners, comprehend changing buyers shopping patterns, choose from the many marketing channel options, manage the daily technical operations and queries at the online website and much, much more.
All this takes up an enormous amount of knowledge, time and resources, something that SMEs, and especially micro-SMEs simply cannot handle as it is just too difficult. This is the main hindrance to why SMEs are hesitant to go online despite the vast opportunities to engage more local and global audience” Ganesh adds.
“This is why today we are launching Commerce.Asia Enterprise – a one stop solution to help bridge the gap between SMEs Merchants and technology enablers,” announces Ganesh.
Commerce.Asia Enterprise is a fully integrated one-stop point to connect SMEs to a full suite of solutions and services – right from building their online store, payment gateway, inventory & warehousing, shipping and delivery, social media marketing and order management, to marketing and managing their products via up to 6 local and 4 regional and global Marketplaces; automatically managing all aspects of the online business for them.
Currently Commerce.Asia has more than 20 customers including merchant brands such as Orlando, and Travel4All. The company expects this to increase to 100 merchants by the end of the year.
More Strategic Investments In Technology Enablers
To spearhead its endeavour, Commerce.Asia has entered into agreements to invest in two (2) existing Malaysian eCommerce enablers, Penang-based SiteGiant and Komuten.
“Commerce.Asia invested in the stakes of these eCommerce enabler companies after deep evaluation of their technology and solutions, which I believe can only grow better with the proper guidance and investments.”
Raising Investments for Enabler Technologies
In an entrepreneurial crowdfunding move, Commerce.Asia is also inviting the public to take part in a 13.4 percent equity stake (to a target of RM3 million) of Commerce.Asia Ventures, to fund its investment of select eCommerce enablers and the solutions within its ecosystem. This equity crowdfunding will be led by Malaysian equity investment venture company Pitchin.
“In one year’s time, the company also targets to raise an additional Rm100 million for investments into technology enablers, via other non-ECF means such as private placements from strategic investors or setting up of a fund to be determined in the future,” he ends.
