honestbee – Startup Graveyard

Founded: July 2015

Shuttered: July 22 operations in Malaysia was suspended after ending its presence in Hong Kong and discontinuing services in Indonesia & Japan with operations in the Philippines, Taiwan and Thailand also suspended. Whether Malaysian operations will be resumed in future is still unclear.

Founders: Joel Sng, Isaac Tay, and Jonathan Low

Amount Raised: RM63.6 million (USD15 million) in 2015 from Formation8 and a further RM195.13 million (USD46) million from Korean investors (reportedly from the South Korean LS Group which Brian Koo, who also was a shareholder of Foundation8 which provided Honestbee its initial funding) at an undisclosed time through its Singapore Headquarters.

Reason for Closure: While Honestbee Malaysia has only been suspended indefinitely and its HQ in Singapore has gone through a downsizing, the startup cannot yet be considered as closed.

The main reason for Honestbee’s troubles now seems to stem from a cash flow crunch from rapid expansion combined with a situation where cost of acquiring new users has significantly outperformed the startup’s revenue margins. With no funding or life line currently in sight, its hard to gauge if Honestbee will bounce back up. With its reported debt of RM763.56 million (USD180 million), the inevitable seems unavoidable.