ShopBack sells personal finance community Seedly to CompareAsiaGroup

CASHBACK rewards player ShopBack has sold off its stake in Seedly, a personal finance community platform, to Hong Kong-based CompareAsiaGroup.

In a press statement on Tuesday, Seedly said that it will continue to run as an independently-branded standalone platform, while working with CompareAsiaGroup to develop the personal finance community in Singapore.

Regulatory filings dated Oct 26 show that Shopback's entity, Ecommerce Enablers Pte Ltd, sold its entire stake in Seedly, comprising ordinary shares and preference shares with a total paid-up capital of nearly S$2.9 million and S$80,000 respectively. The selling price of the shares is not reflected in the filings.

The sale comes two years after ShopBack acquired Seedly to venture into the personal finance space. Founded in 2016, Seedly claims to have over 1.1 million unique monthly visitors to its personal finance community platform.

CompareAsiaGroup has a portfolio of brands across six markets in Asia - Hong Kong, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand.

"We believe that joining CompareAsiaGroup presents a great opportunity to scale that up with stronger emphasis on deepening that community spirit with more features focused around user engagement," said Kenneth Lou, co-founder and chief executive of Seedly.

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Sam Allen, chief executive of CompareAsiaGroup, expressed confidence that with the acquisition, the firm "will continue expanding our footprint and impact in the region".

CompareAsiaGroup claims to have over 10 million users monthly. It has raised more than US$110 million from investors such as Experian; IFC, a member of the World Bank Group; Pacific Century Group; Goldman Sachs Investment Partners VC and Growth Equity.