Over the past 18-months, group-buying has exploded in Australia. After all, who doesn’t love a discount? But it’s not just consumers and the group-buying sites themselves that are reaping the benefits.
Earlier this week, Australian company Dealised, which peddles group-buying platforms, pocketed a cool $5 million in funding from global big-wig SingTel Innov8 and Perth-based venture capital firm Yuuwa Capital LP to assist with its development and international expansion.
Dealised is another success story out of the Pollenizer camp – a company we love to watch and 2010 Cool Company Awards finalist.
For those of you not in the know, Pollenizer builds and invests in web businesses in Australia, providing advice, contacts and basic administrative support, and securing investment.
Dealised is one of its internal creations, first built in late-2009 to power Spreets, which was sold to Yahoo!7 for $40 million a mere 10 months after launching. While Yahoo!7 held the local ownership rights over the Dealised technology, international rights remained with the savvy start-up.
Dealised has since gone on to secure big-name clients globally including the UK’s Daily Telegraph, and Mecom in Scandinavia, in addition to companies in the Middle East and the US. And now Dealised is set to become the first to offer its group-buying platform solution in Asia.
In a press release, newly-minted Dealised Chief Executive, Jonathan Marchbank, said of the deal:
“Dealised partners in Australia and Scandinavia have already beaten Groupon and Living Social; our partners now dominate their respective market.”
“With our platform, partners quickly create and manage regular offers for their customers, maintaining revenue and relationships at risk from Groupon-like clones. We are busy repeating that successful formula in other markets.”
Meanwhile, SingTel Innov8 CEO Yvonne Kwek said: “The most exciting trend is in mobile, especially in Asia, and we see the volume of group-buying transactions on smartphones and other mobile devices growing exponentially over the next couple of years.”
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: In the event of a gold rush, don’t start digging. Start selling shovels!
