Softbaked, the company behind Thailand’s social commerce platform Page365 has raised $420,000 in seed funding.
The capital will be used to expand the Page365 sales and marketing teams, and continue product development, TechCrunch reported. The company plans to find a way to integrate Instagram, which would be beneficial but problematic because of the photo-sharing site’s limited API.
Page365 beat Facebook and Twitter to the social commerce game two years ago, inspired by a Thai trend for buying and selling products over Facebook. Buyers used bank transfers to pay one another, and often met in person or send products via regular mail, and sellers had no system for managing stock.
The Page365 platform plugs into Facebook and chat app Line, which as 20 million users in the country, and provides a central point to manage communications, payments and stock.
Inspire Ventures and existing investor Galaxy Ventures provided the capital.
Page365 dropped its $10 per month prescription model for it’s the 9,000 merchants on the platform to a premium model. Now it will find revenue in a cut of paid-for, value added services offered by its partners in payments and logistics.
Page365 began early testing in Vietnam this year, and an open beta will launch there soon. The company expects to begin offering its services in other parts of Southeast Asia within the next year, depending on further funding.
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