Kaodim targets new markets and services

(from left) Kaodim managing director Jeffri Cheong and chief executive officer Choong Fui-Yu have grown the startup from a two-man team into a company with over 400 employees in just a year.

Kaodim, which match makes users with services providers, has raised US$4mil (RM17.58mil) which it plans to use to expand its reach.

It raised the money in November through Series A financing led by Jakarta-based Venturra Capital with Beenext, 500 Startups and East Ventures.

The company says Indonesia will be its next target market for its service, which is already available in Singapore and the Philippines.

“Naturally with Venturra Capital being our lead investor, we’ve partnered with the right people who can really be tremendously influential and helpful in us penetrating the large Indonesian market,” said Kaodim’s co-founder and managing director Jeffri Cheong.

The company says it’s also working on entering a couple of other major cities but declined to say where. “There are over 600 million people in South-East Asia who require services like plumbing, repairing and cleaning,” he said.

Cheong also hopes to introduce more categories such as live-in maids, pet care, laundry, freelance accountants, event space rental and dancing lessons by this year.

At present, Kaodim boasts 85 types of services from housekeeping to newborn photography.

Choong Fui-Yu, Kaodim’s other co-founder, says he wants Kaodim to become the go-to portal for all services.

“The whole idea of Kaodim is to help local SMEs (small and medium enterprises) grow,” says Choong, who is also the company’s chief executive officer.

“We’ve seen apps for people to book taxis and order food, so there should be one for people to hire services effectively.”

Kaodim doesn’t charge the user anything – instead the service providers will be charged a certain amount of “credit” every time he or she issues a quotation to the customer. The amount of credits deducted will depend on the quotation.

Service providers who register with Kaodim for the first time will be given 600 free credits to get them started.
 
As with most online services, users will be allowed to rate the quality of services provided. Kaodim says it will step in to mediate in cases where the user is extremely unhappy with the service.

The Kaodim’s co-founders impetus for starting the online marketplace came from having difficulties securing trustworthy service providers for moving house and plumbing.

“Anyone who finds it hard to look for services should give Kaodim a try as it’s totally free,”said Cheong.