Paramount’s Corporate Strategy & Investment head, Tracy Gan
Petaling Jaya, 17 March 2022: Paramount Corporation Berhad (Paramount) has invested RM10 million in Commerce DotAsia Ventures Sdn Bhd (Commerce.Asia), an all-in-one e-commerce ecosystem that provides one stop, end-to-end e-commerce solutions for brands, businesses, and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Southeast Asia.The investment was made through its wholly owned investment vehicle Magna Intelligent Sdn Bhd (Magna) and Magna’s 30%-owned associated company, Omegaxis Sdn Bhd, which owns Fundaztic.
This is in line with Paramount’s five-year (2020-2024) strategic plan to identify new sources of earnings, particularly in the digital space. Paramount is also the lead applicant of a consortium applying to Bank Negara for a digital banking licence.
“The pandemic had shifted consumer behaviour and accelerated e-commerce adoption worldwide over the past two years. As such, our investment in Commerce.Asia is timely given its end-to-end ecosystem, track record, and business model which has almost doubled in revenue since 2020 and turned profitable in 2021,” said Paramount’s Corporate Strategy & Investment head, Tracy Gan.
Commerce.Asia manages all aspects of customers’ online businesses, from developing their online stores to managing product sales across multiple e-marketplaces, including warehousing, payment, delivery, marketing, and order management. The company currently has over 92,000 active sellers that use its various platforms, with a group gross merchandise volume (GMV) of RM6.7 billion last year.
This strategic investment in Commerce.Asia creates strong business synergies between Paramount and Commerce.Asia and new revenue streams for both groups.
“The convergence of two fast emerging trends – fintech and e-commerce – serves as the platform for Fundaztic to provide financing to Commerce.Asia’s network of merchants utilising advanced data analytics and insights,” said Gan, adding that it also deepens and broadens the merchant ecosystem available to the Paramount Group.
Fundaztic is one of the first peer-to-peer (P2P) financing platforms in Malaysia licensed by the Securities Commission Malaysia. It has disbursed close to RM150 million, supporting more than 2,350 micro to small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), since 2017.
“Moving forward, Paramount aims to further increase our footprint in the digital space and will continue to be on the lookout for opportunities to grow this segment especially those that create synergy with our existing investments or businesses,” said Gan.
Paramount’s core business is in property development while its coworking division offers a network of collaborative ecosystems uniquely designed for entrepreneurs, freelancers, startups, and corporates.
