ZAP, a part of Kickstart Ventures’ inaugural batch of portfolio companies in 2012, announced this month that it has secured Series A funding from True Digital Group (TDG). TDG is the digital arm of True Corporation Plc, Thailand’s leading integrated telecommunications and digital services provider.

“To help close the gap in consumer’s digital journey, we see a very hopeful opportunity with ZAP as the local market expert and believe that together, we will be able to deliver an exciting experience for consumers in the Philippines,” said Dindo Marzan, True Digital Group Country Head in the Philippines.

ZAP has been the top rewards and loyalty program provider in the Philippines since 2013 and is one of the first tech startups funded by Kickstart. With a platform created primarily to help bring F&B merchants of any size online, ZAP now works with over 4 million users and 2,000 stores.

“Our initial investment in ZAP was backed by the belief that their platform could digitize the Filipino consumer and enterprise experience,” said Minette Navarrete, President of Kickstart Ventures.

“Over the last decade and through a pandemic, they’ve continued to prove the value of their unified data and analytics platform that has provided enterprises with a strategic advantage to develop and promote consumer products,” she added.

Kickstart is the corporate venture capital firm of Globe. It invests in early to early growth-stage tech startups in the Philippines and globally, including startups in major innovation hubs like Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Canada, the United States, and Israel.

Navarrete described ZAP as an exemplary case of a successful pivot, transforming its business amid the pandemic with the launch of its E-Store service in June 2020. In a little over a year since E-Store’s launch, ZAP Group Inc.'s business has grown 5 times, from supporting 75 stores upon its launch in August 2021 to now 483 F&B companies in the Philippines. This was accomplished in partnership with Shopify, the world’s largest E-Commerce Software as a Service (SaaS) platform.

“Everything we do is for the benefit of our partner merchants, and this fund-raise is no different,” shared ZAP CEO Dustin Cheng.

“Our partner merchants can look forward to an even easier-to-use platform with more robust capabilities in the coming months. These include richer analytics and remarketing and targeting features that will help partners foster better customer relationships and ultimately increase sales,” he added.

ZAP plans to expand into a one-stop-shop or end-to-end platform that captures every interaction between customers and merchants, adding value through various tools and services offered.