Digital marketing startup KooData raises $4M series B

KooData, a Taipei-based digital marketing startup, has landed roughly $4 million in a Series B round of funding to accelerate its expansion in Southeast Asia's live streaming market.

The B round was closed with help from Alcor Micro Corp and United Daily News. Part of the fresh investment also comes from Industrial Technology Investment Corporation, the venture capital arm of the government-backed Industrial Technology Research Institute, the company said in a statement, without disclosing further financial details.

The latest round of funding came after KooData in September announced its acquisition of ADUP Co Ltd, a Taiwan-based digital advertising agency.

"We are not satisfied with (traditional ways of) ad optimization and media buying...Our core purpose is to help build the trust between our clients and their customers through marketing technologies," KooData CEO Jason Sun said in the statement, citing increasing fragmentation of social media and rising costs of digital advertising.

To scale up its business, KooData continues searching for mergers and acquisitions (M&A) targets that can bring greater synergy to its operations, according to the statement. The firm has expanded its service footprint to Thailand and Malaysia in recent years.

KooData raised $2.5M in its Series A funding led by China Development Financial Holding Corporation at the end of 2018. The money was planned for overseas expansion, product development and talent acquisition.

New opportunities in times of pandemic

Despite the economic uncertainty brought by the pandemic, KooData gave a relatively optimistic outlook for the coming year, given the flexible nature of the digital marketing industry.

Customers are more inclined to purchase online as they intend to adjust to a new normal in the post-pandemic era. The change in consumer behavior creates an opportunity for Koodata, whose primary services include live streaming e-commerce solutions.

Koodata expects sales to reach the benchmark of NTD1 billion ($34.8 million) next year (2021), company officials told Bnext.
Cumulative revenue in the first two quarters of this year increased by 25% on an annual basis, according to Koodata.

Founded in 2015, KooData helps its corporate clients with advertising tools designed for social media platforms such as Line, Facebook, and Youtube. It has also expanded its business to live streaming marketing after acquiring Fiiser, a cloud and live streaming service provider.

The startup has provided services for nearly 30,000 clients. Most of them are small and medium-sized e-commerce businesses, company data shows.

〔Original :Meet Startup @ TW〕
https://meet.bnext.com.tw/intl/articles/view/47002