The Singaporean dating app startup Paktor had just announced today that it has successfully acquired US$ 7.3 million in Series B funding. Existing investor Vertex Venture Holdings joined the round, including Singaporean investment company Majuven and Indonesian venture capital firm Convergence Ventures.
During their Series A funding round last November 2014, the startup claimed it has 1.5 million registered users. Now that they have expanded to countries such as Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Taiwan, and Indonesia, the company reveals their 5 million registered users and 12 million matches a month.
Paktor all started in July 2013 when CEO and co-founder Joseph Phua found himself single after a failed relationship. Since its launch, the startup has been thinking in a bigger scale, fulfilling people’s relationship needs in every aspects of their life and not limiting the app’s purpose solely on finding romantic relationships. Paktor’s recent feature is a group chat that is based on common interests. This provides social margin for people to communicate and forge new relationships, not necessarily a romantic one. Phua claims that although Facebook and Instagram is dominating the areas of social media, none of them involves directly to getting in touch with new people and establishing new relationships.
Phua believes that his new investors, namely Majuven and Convergence Ventures, are good fits for Paktor as they believe in what Paktor is trying to achieve and they want to help them get there. There are three main hurdles that Paktor is determined to overcome with its latest funding. First, it’s looking to hire “aggressively.” Phua says, “That’s actually been the thing we’ve been trying to focus on for the last month and a half, recruiting talent from engineering to business development. And that’s going to be the key for the next few months – we need a strong team for us to be able to execute.” Secondly, Phua hopes to expand even further to smaller cities within each of the countries that Paktor is currently active in. Expansion to smaller cities would surely contribute exponentially to Paktor’s user base, especially in Indonesia where the startup sees a huge potential market for the next six to 12 months. Finally, Paktor is looking to develop its products and introducing more features, adding to a list of features that already includes group chat function, virtual gifts between users, and enhanced filters like age, job, or height. Phua wants Paktor to be an app that users feel compelled to check at various times during the day for social value reasons and not just because they are looking for their next date.
Disclosure: Paktor is a portfolio company of Convergence Ventures
Attributed to: Michael Tangos
Full Article Link: https://www.techinasia.com/paktor-series-b-funding/