The Netccentric Limited (Netccentric) Group, through its subsidiary Nuffnang Live Commerce Sdn Bhd (NLC), today inked a strategic partnership with Innovatic Commerce Solution Sdn Bhd (ICS), the operator of eShoplive.
As a result, NLC has now emerged as the exclusive technology, payment and fulfilment partner to eShoplive, a leading Social Live Commerce platform based in Malaysia, for an initial period of 3 years with an option to extend for another 3 years.
Netccentric Executive Chairman Ganesh Kumar Bangah (main pic) described the finalisation of the agreement as a milestone, as eShoplive offers strong synergies with his Group’s growth ecosystem.
“This partnership, in particular, benefits the NLC platform, of which eShoplive will become the anchor user across its social commerce business,” said Ganesh.
As a result, NLC will earn volume-based and transaction-based fees from eShoplive for technology and payment gateway usage, warehousing and fulfilment of orders.
The NLC platform is well known within industry for turning the engagement between social media influencers and their followers into revenue and sales, and for transcending consumers from the awareness to purchase stage by allowing viewers to use their device to immediately purchase advertised products from an influencer’s live video stream.
Netccentric had launched the innovative NLC platform in July last year to tap into the globally booming social commerce industry.
On the other hand, ICS had launched eShoplive in August 2019, resulting in the establishment of Malaysia’s first ‘structure of supply chain to both business and consumer’ (S2B2C) platform. Its monthly revenue has been soaring, growing by 4,760% from RM25k since its launch to touch RM1.19m in Dec 2020.
Since its inception, eShoplive has sold over 300 SKUs through its live streaming platform and has built an active customer base of over 30,000 users. It has a team of over 17 professional hosts and streams, on average, 8 – 10 live shows per day from 5 Facebook pages to its 164,000 followers.
‘Cementing the relationship, and to grow and prosper together’
As part of the strategic partnership, Netccentric will acquire a 5% interest in ICS for RM1.55 million (approximately AUD $490k) – funded from existing cash reserves – to “cement the relationship, so that we can all grow and prosper together,” said Ganesh.
“The price of our investment in ICS represents a 2.5 times multiple of their 2021 forecast revenue, which presents compelling value in light of ICS’ rapid growth.”
“Beyond our new financial interest in the business, we see a strong alignment between eShoplive’s mission to add value to the shopping experience and Netccentric’s strategy to work directly with brands looking to expand their e-commerce market presence.
“Our partnership will result in a significant boost to the gross merchandise value on which our group will earn fees, and will provide revenue and cashflow to fund the continued growth of NLC,” added Ganesh.
eShoplive Chief Executive Officer Jorvy Tan (pic) said: “We are delighted to partner with Netccentric and look forward to having their best-in-class e-commerce technology support our growth in transactional value.”
“We expect this development to enhance the user experience for eShoplive customers, vendors and suppliers as we continue to boost engagement with our platform,” added Jorvy.
“We are grateful for Ganesh and his team’s support of our vision to form a one-stop ecosystem spanning live streaming services, talent training, product management, IT solutions and online-to-offline retail strategy.”
Earlier in the year, Nuffnang Live Commerce had successfully completed integrating with Shopify, allowing more than a million Shopify merchants to sell their products via live video streaming.
Canada-based Shopify Inc. is an e-commerce company that powers more than 1 million businesses across 175 countries, generating US$2.93 billion in revenue in FY2020 from US$120 billion in gross merchandise volume.
“The Netccentric Group will continue pursuing strategic merger and acquisition exercises, while continuing to prioritise organic growth, in our quest for more integration and strategic partnerships across the region and the globe,” said Ganesh.
“Through this strategy, we aim to continue delighting customers with more enjoyable and immersive live commerce experiences,” he added.
