Taiwanese Last-Minute Booking Service FunNow Plans Future Expansion in Southeast Asia
Taiwanese online booking platform FunNow is evaluating several targets for its future expansion in the Southeast Asian market, company co-founder C.C. Chang said in an exclusive interview with Meet Global.
Established in 2015, FunNow offers last-minute online bookings for hotels, spas, restaurants, beauty salons, and outdoor events.
"Our next destination will be Singapore or Bangkok...we plan to tap into the new markets through acquisitions or vertical integration (with local partners)," Chang explained, citing the expected synergy achieved through these collaborations.
The Taipei-based startup's international user base is anticipated to be expanded shortly with help from local partners that understand local preferences, while the booking platform could help those companies reach potential customers from different regions of the world, she explained.
"We are aiming to become one of the top three online lifestyle booking platforms in Singapore and Bangkok within three years," Chang said.
FunNow Completes Acquisition of TABLEAPP last year
Although the business timeline for further expansion remains uncertain amid the global pandemic, FunNow's initial plan to increase market share in Malaysia has started to bear fruit.
FunNow completed its acquisition of TABLEAPP, a Malaysian provider of online restaurant reservations, during the fourth quarter of last year, according to a press release dated 28 October 2020.
"Now with TABLEAPP, we are set to become the largest reservation platform in Malaysia, and soon other cities in Southeast Asia for urbanites," co-founder and Head of Southeast Asia of FunNow Philip Ting said in the release.
The deal also marks the Taiwanese firm's first overseas acquisition, FunNow executives told Meet Global.
TABLEAPP is currently the largest online booking platform for upper-middle-class consumers in Malaysia, with an average transaction price of 100-150 Malaysian Ringgit. It has seated over 6.3 million diners since its establishment in 2013, company data shows.
TABLEAPP's roughly 300,000 registered members can make instant restaurant reservations for free at more than 500 restaurants, mostly in Klang Valley, while some are located in other Malaysian cities such as Penang, Johor Bahru, Kota Kinabalu, and Kuching, according to its company website.
Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. The acquisition will result in the Malaysian startup's current investors - including SEA Unicorn, 500 Startups, Crystal Horse Investments together with TABLEAPP's core team led by founder and CEO Benson Chang - becoming shareholders of FunNow, the press statement shows.
Asked about the key considerations for choosing Kuala Lumpur as FunNow's first base to 'test the waters,' Chang said Malaysia stands out among other Southeast Asian countries partly because of its relatively similar cultural backgrounds to Taiwan.
Since Kuala Lumpur lies in the same time zone as Taipei, more efficient for FunNow to manage teams across differenct countries, she added.
20Q3 revenue growth despite pandemic
The firm's rapid expansion seems to have offset the negative impact of COVID-19 on the global leisure and hospitality sector last year (2020). FunNow saw its revenue during the third quarter of last year grow approximately 50% on an annual basis, according to company executives.
FunNow is currently valued at around $25 million after it closed a Series A+ funding round led by Japan's CSV Venture Fund in 2019. The startup's Series A round in 2018 was led by the Alibaba Entrepreneur Fund, with participation from CDIB, Darwin Venture, SparkLabs, and Accuvest.
The startup said it is working on its Series B round of funding, without disclosing further details.
Apart from Kuala Lumpur, FunNow has expanded its footprint in several overseas markets, including Tokyo, Okinawa, Osaka, and Hong Kong. It claims to have a total of 1.5 million registered members across the globe.
