Zarrel – Fashion subscription service

Founded: July 2016

Shuttered: 2018

Founders: Ong Zhong-Ken, Lee Yvonne, Ong Sue Jinn

Amount Raised: No available news on funding raised

Reason for Closure: Key to Zarrel’s business is revenue through subscription of the fashion boxes with additional expected revenue achieved through potential sales of clothing items to customers. Keeping stock of sufficient clothing items is critical in maintaining repeat subscriptions to increase ARPU over time.

However, the variable overhead costs for the delivery of subscription boxes, washing and cleaning of returned products are key costs which add to the fixed overheads and could bear heavily against the revenue of the company. Our opinion is that a key cause of Zarrel’s closure that revenue was not sustainable over time.

What Remains:

SportsPlay.Asia – App to bring Sports & Fitness to you

Founded: January 2017

Shuttered: April 2018 (est based on last post on Instagram)

Founders: Jin Tan, KG Chung

Amount Raised: No news available on funding raised but SportsPlay.Asia is listed as a TinkBig Venture portfolio company. (Observation: Jin Tan was Principle Partner in TinkBig Venture while acting as CEO of SportsPlay.Asia)

Reason for Closure: Based observations through various sources, it seemed that SportsPlay.Asia was facing issues with its business model and organic scaling of users on their mobile app. The business direction and commercialization strategy seemed like not the right fit for the industry and audience addressed.

On the BFM and VspireTV interviews (link posted below), the challenges faced by the founders were shared during the interview and gives insight to their situation at that time.

What Remains:

Honestbee – Online grocery and food delivery

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.

What Remains:

Other Related News:

Be Malas – Concierge service via SMS / App

Founded: April 2015

Shuttered: October 2016 (pivot announced to B2B), business direction changed and rebranded to Posmogo which is no longer active (last post on FB page in February 2019)

Founders: Adlin Yusman, Puvanendren Maniam, Suthenesh Sugumaran

Amount Raised: RM1.8 million (USD500k) from Cradle, KK Fund and an unnamed angel investor in 2015.

A pre-Series A for an undisclosed amount was raised in January 2016 from Japanese fund DeNA, Silicon Valley based Fenox Venture Capital and Singapore based Rimu Group.

Reason for Closure: High transaction fees and being unable to find a business model fit for sustainable revenue.

Over expansion may have also played a part but is my opinion only and not based on solid evidence.

What Remains:

Hello Roaming – get prepaid sim cards before travelling

Founded: December 2015

Shuttered: October 2016

Founders: Serene Gan, Choong Yoke San

Amount Raised: Undisclosed, beta version built by VLT Labs and startup incubator U-projects

Reason for Closure: Lacking market fit and growth in sales

Hello Roaming logo

What Remains:

Hello Roaming Team
Hello Roaming Team

WatchOverMe – Safety application for women

Founded: October 2012

Shuttered: September 2016

Founders: Chin Xin-Ci, James Khoo Chen Shiang

Amount Raised: RM300,000 in self funding & family investment, RM100,000 from a local angel investor (possibly Khailee Ng as he’s listed in their angel.co profile) and RM500,000 via Cradle’s CIP 500 in late 2013.

Reason for Closure: Team was acqui-hired by Carousell.

What Remains:

Gig88 – Performers showcase and gig booking

Founded: November 2015

Shuttered: Estimated mid 2018

Founders: Brandon Chong, Calvin Ng, Kelvin Tan, Ziv Kong

Amount Raised: Undisclosed

Reason for Closure: Gone on to pursue other opportunities.

What Remains:

HomeDeco2U – The advent of digital interior design

Founded: April 2011

Shuttered: Not specified but estimated August 2014

Founders: Yap Soong Dinn

Amount Raised: USD30k seed funding

Reason for Closure: Lack of funding

What Remains: