Rate (company)
| Type of business | Private |
|---|---|
| Founded | December 2016 |
| Headquarters | Singapore |
| Founder(s) | Jake Goh Davis Gay Lim Jing Rong |
| Key people | Jake Goh (CEO) Lim Jing Rong (co-CTO) Davis Gay (co-CTO) |
| Industry | E-commerce |
| Website | www www |
| Current status | Active |
Rate is a fintech and blockchain company comprised of two business units, namely RateX and Rate3 Network. RateX is a browser extension helping users to save money when shopping online, while Rate3 Network is a blockchain protocol for asset-tokenization and identity management.
History[edit]
Founded in Singapore in 2016 by Jake Goh, Davis Gay and Lim Jing Rong, RateX began as a tool enabling shoppers to save money when shopping on overseas Amazon sites.[1] Instead of paying in the foreign currency quoted by their bank, users pay for their purchase in an amount denominated in their local currency inside the RateX browser extension. This allows them to save on cross-border foreign exchange fees and commissions, as banks “typically charge up to 5 percent in hidden fees on top of their own exchange rates for overseas transactions.”[1] The effective rate reflected to the user is consequently brought closer to the wholesale rates typically quoted on services like XE.com and Oanda.
Funding[edit]
In April 2017, the company revealed that they had raised close to S$500,000 from NUS Enterprise, SPRING Singapore and angel investors following its incorporation.[2] In a press release in March 2018, they announced that they had also since then completed a S$3 million (US$2.3 million) pre-series A funding round, with participation from Alpha JWC Ventures and Insignia Venture Partners.[3]
Product Expansion[edit]
RateX’s product offering has subsequently expanded to include a feature to aggregate and apply online promo codes automatically, along with a cashback reward program. The company said it upgraded its promo code function after realising 70 percent of users were using it, further developing it into a tool that “scours the web for publicly available coupon codes that users can apply to their online shopping baskets."[4]
The list of supported merchants has also grown to include Lazada, Shopee, eBay, Hotels.com, Agoda, Singapore Airlines, Zalora, ASOS.com, Honestbee and Deliveroo, among others. Combined, these new developments have allowed users of RateX to save a cumulative total of S$500,000 on online purchases since 2017.[4]
Blockchain[edit]
In May 2018, the company announced that it had completed a US$15 million initial coin offering to fund the creation of an open-sourced blockchain protocol for asset-tokenization and identity management, under a separate business unit named Rate3 Network.[5] In a press release, Rate3 noted that “blockchain technology has the potential to further improve upon the legacy infrastructure used for...trade, which will, in turn, through the trade of tokenized digital assets, lead to further wealth creation among individuals and enterprises.” It describes itself as a protocol that is “bridging enterprises with the advantages of open, public blockchains."[6] In December 2018, it announced the closed beta launch of SGDR, a Singapore dollar-backed stablecoin, which was also the first asset to be tokenized via the Rate3 protocol.[7]
Partnerships[edit]
Rate began as an incubatee project at NUS Enterprise's The Hangar in 2016.[2]
In 2018, Rate was selected to be one of just three companies that formed the 2018 PayPal Incubator cohort.[8][9]
References[edit]
Rate (company)[edit]
This article "Rate (company)" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Rate (company). Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Woo, Jacqueline (28 March 2017). "Start-ups disrupt local forex scene". Straits Times. Retrieved 15 February 2019.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 "Dollars, cents and an entrepreneurial streak". NUS News. 13 April 2017. Retrieved 15 February 2019.
- ↑ Yon, Heong Tung (7 March 2018). "Singapore startup RateX raises US$2.3M to make online shopping cheaper via low exchange rates". Yahoo News. Retrieved 15 February 2019.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Chia, Rachel (28 March 2017). "I tried using RateX, a tool that auto-inserts discount codes when you're shopping online – and quickly discovered its biggest catch". Business Insider Singapore. Retrieved 15 February 2019.
- ↑ Teng, Angela (7 March 2018). "Singapore fintech firm Rate raises $15m to build blockchain network". Tech in Asia. Retrieved 15 February 2019.
- ↑ "Rate3 Bridges Enterprises With Blockchain's Benefits Through Asset Tokenization". Press Release. 11 November 2018. Retrieved 15 February 2019.
- ↑ Lee, Terence (28 December 2018). "A stablecoin for the Singapore dollar just launched. Here's what it's about". Tech in Asia. Retrieved 15 February 2019.
- ↑ "PayPal Incubator". Paypal. Retrieved 15 February 2019.
- ↑ Chin, Will (16 November 2018). "What's brewing in Singapore's PayPal Innovation Lab". Tech in Asia. Retrieved 15 February 2019.
