ShopBack, the one-stop rewards and discovery platform, has secured US$45 million in its latest funding round.

New investors include co-leads EV Growth and Rakuten Capital, as well as EDBI, a government-linked strategic investor. The new capital injection brings the company’s total funding to $83 million. Amit Patel, CEO of Ebates, Inc., a Rakuten company, and Willson Cuaca, managing partner of EV Growth, will join ShopBack’s board of directors.

Apart from rewarding users with cashback for making online purchases, ShopBack has created many features to improve users’ buying experiences. Its latest product, ShopBack GO, helps users discover and decide where to eat while saving them time and money.

Launched in partnership with Visa and Mastercard, ShopBack GO enables users to dine out and get paid. The product also empowers F&B operators to make better business decisions with data insights powered by ShopBack.

In 2018, ShopBack saw 250 per cent year-on-year growth in orders and sales. The company powered over 2.5 million monthly transactions for more than 7 million users in seven Asia Pacific countries, and delivered close to US$1 billion sales for over 2,000 merchant partners in both online and offline spaces.

In the same year, ShopBack entered Australia, its first market outside Asia. It also opened research and development hubs in Viet Nam and Taiwan, driving a threefold increase in its Engineering, Data and Product Management talent pool.

ShopBack’s new round of funding will be deployed into simplifying shopping experiences and expanding data capabilities to fuel personalisation and business insights, as well as accelerating growth in key markets. The company remains focused on building rewards and discovery features to enhance both online and offline shopping experiences for consumers across the Asia Pacific region.

Its latest research and development hub in Viet Nam accounted for close to 40 per cent of the new hires in the Engineering, Data and Product Management team in 2018. ShopBack is looking to at least double its talent pool in Viet Nam over the next few quarters. — VNS