The Shox platform developer is reported to have received $5.5 million funding or equivalent to 79 billion Rupiah in the series A round. Also participated in this round Ephesus United, AC Ventures, Teja Ventures, SGInnovate, Partech, and a number of investors.
The data has been submitted to the regulator. DailySocial.id has tried to confirm the news regarding this investment from related parties, however, there had been no response until this article was published.
This startup was founded by Sonat Yalcinkaya (Kaya) and Vyani. Kaya himsel previously had experience in handling e-commerce businesses for big brands such as Philips and Midea. Meanwhile, Vyani is known as the co-founder of the logistics startup Pakde, which acquired by Shipper in 2020.
In fact, Shox has been operating since 2019 and currently has tens of thousands of application users. Shox’s service focuses on users in rural areas, targeting the unbanked population.
Shox Rumahan is currently being transformed as an application to fulfill household demands– from kitchen utensils, electronic equipment, and so on. With a social commerce concept, this platform allows its users to earn additional income by entrepreneurship through the partnership/community program with the social gathering feature in the application.
Evolution from Soyaka AI
Previously, Kaya was also known as the founder of Soyaka AI – a developer of artificial intelligence-based social commerce platforms. The Soyaka site and team are currently rerouted to fully work on Shox Rumahan. Even though in terms of backend, Shox also utilizes the engine from the Soyaka platform.
Saoyaka’s AI capabilities allow Shox to offer excellent features, such as using scanned photos or images to find products; then come up with product ideas and inspiration according to existing trends.
Shox Rumahan is growing quite rapidly, to the day this article was published, they already have around 150 employees stated on LinkedIn. Some of the team is headquartered in Yogyakarta.
From an article published by Kaya in 2021, Shox is said to have gathered users in more than 5000 villages in various regions. By analyzing existing purchasing trends, their team has helped build a credit scoring system, which will then be used as capital to create a comprehensive digital banking and payments ecosystem.
It is also said with the current business model, the cost for customer acquisition is much cheaper than the general e-commerce concept. “Our CAC (customer acquisition cost) in this rural community is 10 times cheaper than existing players. And these customers stay because they see true value,” he wrote.
In terms of logistics efficiency, Shox is more focused on serving bulk purchases (usually on a per RT scale). Ordering in large quantities makes it easier for them to reduce logistics costs, around 5-10x cheaper. Although it must be taken to a location far enough from the city center. “Our current average order value (AOV) exceeds $200, which is 5 to 10 times that of other social commerce players,” Kaya said.
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Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian