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Thailand start-up raises THB229 million to expand online printing into APAC

According to a recent report, a Thai start-up aimed at disrupting the traditional printing industry in Southeast Asia has acquired a THB229 million (US$7.7 million) investment. It will use these funds to expand its business into Asia Pacific.

While the Bangkok-based company had expanded beyond Thailand and into Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia earlier, it is now looking to go beyond Southeast Asia and enter Australia, New Zealand, South Korea and other markets over the next year.

Those moves will be backed by this Series A round, which is led by an investment firm who is an existing backer of the printing company.

The printing start-up claims to have worked with 45,000 companies to date. Its core services include printed business cards, flyers, booklets, posters and more, in addition to marketing collateral such as promotional pens, other stationary and flash drives.

While the printing business isn’t a particularly alluring to outsiders, the start-up aims to disrupt the industry in Southeast Asia using something known as “batching.”

Batching involves bundling a range of customer orders together for each print run to ensure that each sheet that’s sent to the printer is filled to capacity, or near capacity.

While this may seem obvious, traditional printing batches were almost always below capacity because each customer ordered individually with little option for batching.

The start-up uses the internet to reach a wider number of customers which, using technology to batch jobs, allowing for it to handle more orders with fewer printer runs.

That translates to cost savings for its business and lower prices for its customers. There are also benefits for the printers themselves, as they are guaranteed volume, which is no sure thing in today’s increasingly digital world.

The start-up’s joint managing director stated that the company’s main pivot has been away from the idea it needed to own its printing facility in-house.

At first, the company was under the impression that as an online printer eventually, it needed to own and operate its own machinery. However, over the next couple of years, the company experienced a shift in mindset.

A large part of this is because it simply isn’t practical to ship products overseas form Southeast Asia, both in terms of time and also the cost and hassle of importing.

Thus, the start-up has local partners in each market that it collaborates with. Rather than “disrupting” the system, the co-founder argued that his company is making the process more efficient.

Currently, the start-up employs 125 staff, and there are plans to grow that number by an additional 30. In particular, the co-founder said the company is building out an internal structure that will enable it to scale — that includes the recent hiring of a CTO.

It was noted that the company focuses on larger clients because of their higher average basket size and a higher chance of repeat customers, which the co-founder revealed is 60 per cent on average.

This turnover is achieved rather impressively and involves no design software on the website. Instead, the start-up’s customers can upload their completed designs in any format.

While it was acknowledged that the various formats can be bothersome, the approach also minimizes more hobbyist-type business.

However, the co-founder did say that the company is happy to work with customers of all sizes.

The start-up claims it grew its customer numbers by 200 per cent over the past year but it declined to provide revenue details. The company has a path to profitability that’s helped by “healthy” profit margins of 30-80 per cent depending on the product.

An early backer of the start-up stated that the company has found the right formula to win an increasing number of customers by creating true value: providing something that’s better at a cheaper price point, and with enhanced speed to market.

PARTNER

Qlik’s vision is a data-literate world, where everyone can use data and analytics to improve decision-making and solve their most challenging problems. A private company, Qlik offers real-time data integration and analytics solutions, powered by Qlik Cloud, to close the gaps between data, insights and action. By transforming data into Active Intelligence, businesses can drive better decisions, improve revenue and profitability, and optimize customer relationships. Qlik serves more than 38,000 active customers in over 100 countries.

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CTC Global Singapore, a premier end-to-end IT solutions provider, is a fully owned subsidiary of ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation (CTC) and ITOCHU Corporation.

Since 1972, CTC has established itself as one of the country’s top IT solutions providers. With 50 years of experience, headed by an experienced management team and staffed by over 200 qualified IT professionals, we support organizations with integrated IT solutions expertise in Autonomous IT, Cyber Security, Digital Transformation, Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure, Workplace Modernization and Professional Services.

Well-known for our strengths in system integration and consultation, CTC Global proves to be the preferred IT outsourcing destination for organizations all over Singapore today.

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Planview has one mission: to build the future of connected work. Our solutions enable organizations to connect the business from ideas to impact, empowering companies to accelerate the achievement of what matters most. Planview’s full spectrum of Portfolio Management and Work Management solutions creates an organizational focus on the strategic outcomes that matter and empowers teams to deliver their best work, no matter how they work. The comprehensive Planview platform and enterprise success model enables customers to deliver innovative, competitive products, services, and customer experiences. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, with locations around the world, Planview has more than 1,300 employees supporting 4,500 customers and 2.6 million users worldwide. For more information, visit www.planview.com.

SUPPORTING ORGANISATION

SIRIM is a premier industrial research and technology organisation in Malaysia, wholly-owned by the Minister​ of Finance Incorporated. With over forty years of experience and expertise, SIRIM is mandated as the machinery for research and technology development, and the national champion of quality. SIRIM has always played a major role in the development of the country’s private sector. By tapping into our expertise and knowledge base, we focus on developing new technologies and improvements in the manufacturing, technology and services sectors. We nurture Small Medium Enterprises (SME) growth with solutions for technology penetration and upgrading, making it an ideal technology partner for SMEs.

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HashiCorp provides infrastructure automation software for multi-cloud environments, enabling enterprises to unlock a common cloud operating model to provision, secure, connect, and run any application on any infrastructure. HashiCorp tools allow organizations to deliver applications faster by helping enterprises transition from manual processes and ITIL practices to self-service automation and DevOps practices. 

PARTNER

IBM is a leading global hybrid cloud and AI, and business services provider. We help clients in more than 175 countries capitalize on insights from their data, streamline business processes, reduce costs and gain the competitive edge in their industries. Nearly 3,000 government and corporate entities in critical infrastructure areas such as financial services, telecommunications and healthcare rely on IBM’s hybrid cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift to affect their digital transformations quickly, efficiently and securely. IBM’s breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing, industry-specific cloud solutions and business services deliver open and flexible options to our clients. All of this is backed by IBM’s legendary commitment to trust, transparency, responsibility, inclusivity and service.

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