INCITE Foodtech Sdn Bhd, a fast-growing food tech venture, has agreed to acquire 100% stake in Eatcosys Sdn Bhd, a homegrown retail technology solutions provider that was recently recognised by KPMG and HSBC as one of the “emerging Malaysian unicorns.”
“The acquisition will enable us to advance our ambition of building a comprehensive, unified retail tech ecosystem in the Asean region, which comprises consumer tech, retail marketing solutions, retail tech solutions and fintech services,” says Incite Foodtech CEO, Karen S Puah. The acquisition will be completed by the middle of this year.
The move witnesses both parties combining expertise and capabilities and diversifying their offerings to create a unified retail ecosystem that benefits both the business-to-business and business-to-consumer segments.
This development also will be a fitting response to the latest government demand for industry players to develop more innovative products and market development strategies by leveraging the digital economy to revolutionise the retail industry.
The ecosystem’s business model comprises four divisions: the consumer sector, which focuses on food and beverage brands and future expansion will include groceries, convenience stores, pharmacies, and electrical appliances chain stores.
Second, retail marketing solutions that offer redemption programmes, licensed-character promotions, merchant partnerships, and user activation followed by retail tech solutions, which focuses on point-of-sales, customer relationship management, data analytics, and payment gateway.
Lastly, financial technology (fintech) services that comprise digital lending, equity crowdfunding and venture capital.
The live transactional data from the consumer sector, retail marketing solutions and retail tech solutions is harvested as guiding benchmarks for fintech services.
All offerings related to finance are licenced by the Ministry of Local Government Development Malaysia and Bank Negara, and regulated by the Securities Commission.
“Both parties aim to revolutionise the retail tech market in Malaysia, embedded with fintech.
“It couldn’t have come at a better time for us to join forces and build a comprehensive ecosystem, with an initial public offering (IPO) as the ultimate goal,” says Tham Lih Chung, co-founder and chairman of Eatcosys.
Tham, who will be appointed as the group CEO of the merged entity post-acquisition, stated they aim to hit RM100mil in revenue within 12 months and are looking at expanding their business operations in the Asean region.
Incite Foodtech Sdn Bhd is a food tech venture headquartered in Kuala Lumpur.
The venture creates and acquires QSBF (quick-serving-beverage-and-food) brands that satisfy customer needs and sentiment by leveraging on big data.
With its unique “plug-in and scale” business model, the company supercharges QSBF brands development in a variety of formats, including physical outlets, shared space, kiosks and cloud kitchens.
Eatcosys is a one-stop retail technology solutions provider fronted by a group of specialists to support the underserved and unserved businesses with a broad suite of retail and digital services.
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