Local ‘buy now, pay later’ (BNPL) player hoolah has been bought by Singapore’s biggest cashback provider Shopback for an unknown sum.
Shop and hoolah hope to create “the world’s most rewarding commerce enablement platform” with this partnership.
After the purchase closes, hoolah will accelerate its growth by extending its BNPL product to ShopBack’s over 8,000 merchants and 30 million shoppers in nine Asia-Pacific regions. Meanwhile, ShopBack will enhance its shopping tools and rewards programme by allowing customers to pay using a quick and flexible method at checkout.
“We see significant synergies between ShopBack’s and hoolah’s product lines. Together, we unlock value by providing a broader platform of new capabilities and services for shoppers and merchants alike,” said Henry Chan, co-founder and CEO of ShopBack.
The deal follows Temasek’s $40 million Series E investment in ShopBack. Indies Capital, East Ventures, Chunghwa PChome Fund, Dynasty Kingdom, and January Capital all participated in the financing, according to a DealStreetAsia article.
Stuart Thornton, the CEO and co-founder of hoolah, announced his departure from the company in a LinkedIn post last month, claiming “personal reasons.”
ShopBack, which was founded in 2014, offers payback to consumers in the areas of fashion, cosmetics, food and beverage, electronics, travel, and meal delivery. Apart from Singapore, it currently operates in Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, and Australia. Over 8,000 online and in-store merchant partners, including Taobao, Expedia, and Shopee, generate over US $3.5 billion in yearly sales, according to the business.
Last year, ShopBack purchased Ebates Jorea, South Korea’s largest online cashback programme, from Rakuten, a supporter of ShopBack’s US$45 million fundraising round in 2019.
Hoolah, founded by Thornton and Arvin Singh in Singapore in 2018, allows customers to pay for products in three interest-free instalments. The business raised $6.67 million in a Series A financing headed by venture capital firm Allectus last year. In Singapore, Malaysia, and Hong Kong, hoolah has partnered with over 2,000 online and in-store businesses, including Charles & Keith, Secretlab, Zalora, and Zenyum.
Because it is “faster, simpler, and free for customers,” BNPL is gaining traction amid other payment choices such as credit cards, installment loans, and mobile wallet lending products. This solution has been around for a while, but it has just recently gained traction in Southeast Asia, with success stories like PayLater in Indonesia and Atome and hoolah in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malaysia.
Due to an increase in e-commerce activity as the COVID-19 epidemic spread, the BNPL industry saw a boom. From US $9.5 billion in 2016 to US $54.2 billion in 2020, the value of ASEAN’s eCommerce has nearly doubled. By 2025, it is expected to expand at a pace of 22% annually.
In August, hoolah partnered with Jumper.ai, a Singapore-based omnichannel conversational commerce firm, to provide BNPL to Asia via conversational commerce. Back then, Thornton was also recognised as a Jumper.ai advisor.
Vonage, a multinational cloud communications firm based in New Jersey, announced the acquisition of Jumper.ai later that month.
