Carousell Hong Kong has teamed up with GoGoX and Atome to build an ecosystem that serves small businesses. Separately, HK-headquartered music tech startup Soundbrenner has raised $1.5 million from Asia’s investment platform Choco Up.
Carousell HK forms partnership with GoGoX, Atome
The Hong Kong arm of Singapore’s online classifieds business Carousell has teamed up with app-based logistics platform GoGoX and “buy now, pay later” (BNPL) brand Atome to build an ecosystem that serves small businesses in the Asian financial hub.
The three companies joined hands to help the city’s 340,000 or so small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) scale up operations and address high-cost challenges, such as rent, cash flow, resource management, and data security, via Carousell for Business (CarouBiz).
CarouBiz, which was launched in HK in 2016, operates under a subscription model that delivers a suite of premium seller tools to help grow businesses. Caroubiz has accumulated over one million monthly active users (MAUs) from 130,000 MAUs at the time of its inception, providing products including consumer electronics, furniture and home decoration, skincare and cosmetics, apparel, jewelry, and toys, shows the company website.
“Carousell has been enhancing our CarouBiz offerings this year to further strengthen support for small businesses. We have seen double digit percentage growth in our CarouBiz subscribers this year, which shows growing demand for such tools,” said Kevin Huang, managing director of Carousell Hong Kong, in a statement.
The official partnership came after Carousell started working with GoGoX this September to offer diversified logistics services to casual sellers, as well as targeted logistics solutions to merchants.
Its joint efforts with Atome will enable Carousell’s merchants to access a more flexible payment option, as lending from banks is still challenging for SMEs in the e-commerce and retail sector. With Atome, merchants can split their bills into three, zero-interest deferred payments upon checkout via credit card, debit card, or Apple Pay, according to the statement.
In September, Carousell entered the unicorn club at a valuation of $1.1 billion after it raised $100 million in a funding round led by South Korean private equity (PE) firm STIC Investments.
HK-based music startup Soundbrenner raises $1.5m
Hong Kong-headquartered music tech startup Soundbrenner has raised $1.5 million from Asia’s investment platform Choco Up to fund its new software product launch, global expansion, and entry into the music education sector.
Soundbrenner, which develops wearable devices for musicians, plans to “take its product development and market expansion to the next level” with the new funding, said the startup in a statement on Wednesday.
Founded in 2014 in Berlin, Soundbrenner has developed a series of products including “Soundbrenner Core,” a four-in-one smart music tool that combines the functions of a vibrating metronome, a contact tuner, a dB meter, and a smartwatch. It also offers a smart vibrating metronome named “Soundbrenner Pulse,” as well as “The Metronome,” a mobile app that works standalone and as a companion for the wearables.
To date, the startup has shipped over 100,000 wearables, with its products available in music stores across over 40 countries. It claims that its mobile apps are used by more than 700,000 musicians every month, with more than eight million downloads so far.
While building its retail distribution in the US, Canada, Europe, and Australia, Soundbrenner will focus on finding new distribution channels in other markets including Japan, South Korea, China and more.
It will also invest the fresh capital in “a long-planned entry” into the music education market and the R&D of its next-generation hardware and software products.
The startup is developing Soundbrenner Plus, a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) subscription service that features Soundbrenner Learn, a comprehensive content library for mastering rhythm.
Choco Up, which typically injects $10,000 to $10 million into each investment, is a revenue-based financing (RBF) platform that provides startups with non-dilutive funding solutions.
RBF, also known as royalty-based financing, is a type of financial capital provided to businesses in which investors inject capital into a firm in return for a fixed percentage of the firm’s ongoing gross revenues.