Malaysian-based grocery mobile app provider Jocom International Holdings has successfully listed part of its share capital on 1exchange (1X), Singapore’s first regulated private securities exchange. The company managed to raise proceeds of about $5.6 million listing some 26.7% of its total shares outstanding on 1X.
1X is the first regulated private securities exchange with a Recognised Market Operator licence granted by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). It is part of CapBridge Financial, backed by Singapore Exchange (SGX), SGInnovate, South Korea’s Hanwha Investment and Securities Co, Hong Kong’s Cyberport Macro Fund, and AMTD Digital. It aims to give private companies and funds the flexibility to list a portion of their shares in the form of tradeable private equities.
Established in 2015, Jocom, which is an acronym for “Just Order Conveniently on Mobile”, operates a mobile grocery store and managed to build a sizeable base of three million users, 500 vendors and 15,000 stock-keep units (SKUs) as at Mar 18.
As Malaysia’s first ever grocery mobile app, Jocom has since evolved into one of few end-to-end platforms for grocery shopping in Malaysia. It has full control over the entire order journey from purchase to fulfilment and has ownership over the platform, proprietary software, delivery fleet, and storage facilities.
Besides the mobile app, a significant portion of Jocom’s business over the last five years involved operating behind the scenes in the running of virtual shops and fulfilling of orders on online marketplaces.
With this latest round of funds obtained through the 1X listing, the company intends to use the funds raised to complete its transformation as a fully-branded online platform and a gateway for both consumers as well as local producers in Malaysia who want to break into the Malaysian market and beyond.
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The funds will be invested into developing an AI-powered back-end system which will analyse big data such as demographics, customer preferences and spending power, and transform it into actionable insights for targeted marketing activities. The AI-driven analytical insights will also support delivery logistics, inventory management and merchandise pricing, streamlining of processes and generating of cost efficiencies.
With the Covid-19 pandemic increasing consumer’s need for grocery shopping in Malaysia, Jocom’s revenue for 2020 surged 30% y-o-y, boosted by an increase in online grocery purchases of essential items as people complied with the Movement Control Order (MCO). Between 2015 and 2020, Jocom has generated approximately US$40 million in sales revenue.
Beyond Malaysia, Jocom has started making inroads in China, channelling sales of Malaysian products to Chinese consumers. It plans to expand its operations to other markets, such as Indonesia and Australia.
Joshua Sew, founder and CEO of Jocom says, “Our outperformance during Malaysia’s MCO at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic has proven our resilience and relevance as an essential, mobile-enabled business and we believe this is an opportune time to launch an overhaul of our own platform. Funding aside, our new status as a listee on a private securities exchange backed by the SGX will also expose Jocom to a new pool of investors and enhance its positioning for more business opportunities in the future.”
