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The e-commerceindustry experienced a dramatic increase over the past few years, as the pandemic drove more businesses tocreate an online presence. Coupled with rising internet penetration inthe region, South East Asia in particular is experiencing the highest growth in e-commerce.
Amid the expansion of companies offering e-commerce services,one company is looking at the bigger picture and offering aggregationservices to Asian e-commerce players.
Society Pass Inc. (NASDAQ: SOPA) is anacquisition-focused e-commerce aggregator with operations in SoutheastAsia. It says its M&A activity has picked up steam in 2022.
This is where CFORaynauld Liang comes in. Benzinga recently sat down with Liang todiscuss the company’s target markets, service offerings and futureplans.
What Is SoPa all about?
Liang said in the interview that theVietnamese company is building a next-generation loyalty anddata-focused marketing platform for e-commerce companies in SoutheastAsia.
Capitalizingon the growth of e-commerce in the Southeast Asian region, SocietyPass—or SoPa as Liang says it is also referred to—is focused onadding to its services by acquiring up-and-coming market leaders inthe travel, digital advertising and F & B spaces, amongothers.
As moreconsumers and merchants register with their platform, more transactiondata is generated, which the company leverages to create moreopportunities for customer loyalty. Liang said the company’secosystem of technology-enabled companies synergistically workstogether to transform how consumers and merchants interact with oneanother, with the goal of generating customer loyalty for merchantswhile increasing the ease of transacting for consumers.
“Our major marketsinclude Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand, withThailand and Indonesia being the new markets we have entered thisyear,” Liang said. Two of these countries are expected to outpace even the broader Southeast Asian market in e-commerce growth, with athird seeing double-digit growth ahead of many of its Asian peers.
The Problem SoPa Solves - And Liang’s Role In It
Liang said SoutheastAsian e-commerce companies in lifestyle, travel, digital advertising,food and beverage and travel are SoPa’s target markets.
As CFO of an acquisitiveNASDAQ-listed company, Liang’s primary responsibilities includeSecurities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reporting, audits, financesand integrating the company’s acquisitions. He says his core financeteam has grown from just 3-4 people to 15 people in just about 6months, apart from the finance teams helping the company in each ofits target markets.
According to Liang, capital raising is going to be difficultfor companies over the next year as market conditions look set toremain choppy. In such conditions, SoPa has been leaning on itsstrategy of acquiring companies to increase its revenue, user base andmerchants.
SoPa islooking at acquisition targets ranging from $2 million to $10 millionin revenues as it focuses on its user base and merchants. Liang saidthe company does not have any direct competitors because it is anacquisition-focused company in many of the verticals it has created.Rather than competing directly with major players in SoutheastAsia’s e-commerce industry, SoPa is creating its own space throughacquisitions.
“We are looking at smaller targets. We acquire anythingbetween $2 million to $10 million, aggregate them and build differentbusiness verticals in our own ecosystem,” Liang said. SoPa keepstheir acquisition targets aligned with them through equity swaps andconserves cash by lowering its cash consideration offers so it alwayshas enough working capital at hand for the expansion of all of itsbusiness verticals.
With SoPa continuing to look for targets, Liang’s role alongwith company Founder/Chairman/CEO, Dennis Nguyen, is critical in thedue diligence process to help ensure that the company is buying theright target, and at the right price.
About The CFO
Liang brings strongcapital markets experience to the management team at SoPa. Aftercompleting his education from the University of Queensland inAustralia, he began his career as finance manager at IBMCorp. ’s (NYSE: IBM) IBM Global Services/IBM Asia PacificSoftware Group before moving to Hyflux Ltd. for a similar positionfrom 2005 to 2007.
From there, he went on to add even more valuable capitalmarkets experience as CFO for Singapore Exchange Ltd.-listed SinoEnvironment Technology Group Ltd. and as an investment adviser forPrimeforth Capital Ltd. Before joining Society Pass (SoPa) Liang wasfinancial director for Connex Capital Ltd.
As a loyalty and datamarketing ecosystem, Society Pass operates multiple e-commerceplatforms across its key markets in SEA. Its business model focuses onanalysing user data through the expected launch of its Society Passloyalty platform and circulation of its universal loyalty points,which seamlessly connects consumers and merchants across multipleproduct and service categories to foster organic loyalty. Since itsinception, SoPa has amassed over 1.6 million registered consumers andover 5,500 registered merchants/brands on its platform. It hasinvested 2+ years building proprietary IT architecture with cuttingedge components to effectively scale and support its consumers,merchants, and acquisitions.Society Pass provides merchants with#HOTTAB Biz and #HOTTAB POS – a specialized POS technology solution,a comprehensive system for payment, loyal customer management, userprofile analytics, and convenient financial support packages for smalland medium-sized enterprises.In addition, SoPa operates Leflair.com ,Vietnam’s leading lifestyle e-commerce platform, Pushkart.ph , apopular grocery delivery company in Philippines, Handycart.vn , aleading online restaurant delivery service based in Hanoi, Vietnam,and Gorilla Networks , a Singapore-based, blockchain/web3-enabledmobile virtual network operator.For more information, please checkout: http://thesocietypass.com/ .
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Contact Details
Dennis Nguyen:Founder, Chairman & CEO
+1 877-440-9464
CompanyWebsite
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