Hong Kong SaaS Startup Raises $8 Million In Funding Led By Tiger Global

Hong Kong-based SaaS startup SleekFlow has raised $8 million in Series A funding led by U.S. billionaire Chase Coleman’s investment firm Tiger Global, one of the world’s most active startup investors.

Other investors in the round included existing investor Alibaba Entrepreneurs Fund and Hong Kong-based Transcend Capital. The funds will be used to fuel SleekFlow’s global expansion plans, particularly Southeast Asian markets like Singapore and Malaysia, continental Europe and the U.K. Some of the new funds will also be used for product development in fintech and analytics.

“Despite the economic downturn, the social commerce market is going stronger than ever, reaching $474 billion in 2021,” Chibo Tang, managing partner of Gobi Partners, which manages the Alibaba Entrepreneur Fund, said in a statement. “SleekFlow’s innovative solutions will help these global commerce businesses meet the evolving needs of customers, who are turning to social channels to purchase more than ever before.”

Founded in 2019, SleekFlow’s software helps companies integrate and manage customer inquiries and sales leads from different social media and messaging apps, such as Facebook Messenger, WeChat and WhatsApp, into a single platform. The startup says more than 5,000 companies have used its software, including the Hong Kong billionaire Cheng family’s Chow Tai Fook Jewellery, billionaire Robert Kuok’s Shangri-La luxury hotel chain and Hong Kong-based logistics unicorn Lalamove. In November, Canadian e-commerce technology company Shopify used SleekFlow to boost its sales.

“People nowadays spend more than 80% of their time on social platforms. It’s already a habit for us to discover products and even buy on social channels directly,” Henson Tsai, founder and CEO of SleekFlow, said in a statement. “The huge social commerce market potential is expected to rise to $3.37 trillion by 2028, so we are excited that SleekFlow is part of this e-commerce revolution.”

Before founding SleekFlow, Tsai, who earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Imperial College London, was an investment banking analyst at HSBC and a management consultant at EY focused on data analytics.