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Before Block 71, before heavy government support, this company was paving the way for startups in Singapore; and now it has been acquired

Over one year after the agreement was quietly inked, AllDealsAsia announced today it is in the final stages of an acquisition by Indonesia’s conglomerate giant Lippo Group and senior leadership from AllDealsAsia will has already been playing a major role in the development of Matahari Mall.

Financial details of the deal are undisclosed and, as part of the acquisition, AllDealsAsia will be closing down on April 30.

The deal is important for two reasons; it is an important exit in Singapore’s startup history and it shines some light on Lippo Group’s e-commerce venture Matahari Mall.

If we lift the wizard’s curtain, for the last year, AllDealsAsia Co-founder and CEO Yiping Goh has been playing the role of Founding Member, Chief Product Officer and Co-Lead of CrossBorder Sellers Programme — in lay terms, she was an integral cog in taking Matahari Mall from idea to Indonesia’s second largest e-commerce company.

“I was just too busy. We were so focussed on preparing the launch of Matahari Mall,” Goh told e27 with a smile, explaining why she was going public now.

I believe she understood why I asked the question; a nice funding round is a ‘startup-metric’ that drives conversation within the community but an exit is far more substantial.

It is a symbol that a particular ecosystem is producing healthy, quality companies and gives confidence to both Founders and investors about the ability for startups to find an exit path.

So, when a massive regional conglomerate acquires a well-known startup, it is not often the news stays underground for more than year.

“There was no real particular reason for [making an announcement] now. It is just because a lot of people in the startup industry are asking ‘hey, what are you doing now,’ said Goh.

Also Read: Singapore work-messaging app Pie acquired by Google; first in SEA

AllDealsAsia was founded in 2010 by Goh and her brother Wayne and went on to become one of Southeast Asia’s largest e-commerce aggregator portals.

The aggregator startup was inspired at the time by the popularity of Groupon and the multitude of companies looking to localise the business model. In 2011, AllDealsAsia raised S$500,000 (US$370,000) from Iconic Ventures to expand its website to include companies like Lazada, Qoo10 and its own daily deals.

The company grew to have 500,000 subscribers.

“It is a little like what happened to Pie (the work messaging startup acquired by Google in February). The basic interest from Lippo Group is to understand e-commerce and the [learn from our] experience of running an e-commerce company,” said Goh.

For MatahariMall, one of AllDealsAsia’s attractive traits was its O2O mode — the ecommerce startup was one of the first in the region to integrate online orders and offline pick-ups.

To a certain extent, it was ahead of its time in the trend which today is becoming more popular across Southeast Asia.

As Matahari Mall has a well-publicised O2O strategy, the attraction is natural.

The Director of Lippo Group, John Riady echoed a similar sentiment.

“This is very good partnership. We saw a very talented team and there is so much we can learn from them regarding eCommerce in the region,” he said in a statement.

Goh said the startup’s flexibility, adaptability and quick decision-making skills were other attributes Lippo Group found attractive.

And now that Goh is in a position of power inside Matahari Mall, those characteristics have become part of the internal culture. Goh says she promotes experimentation, and a ‘deliver fast, test fast’ attitude.

“We now have almost every single payment mode Indonesians would use such as cash on demand, bank transfers, e-money, credit cards, wallets and even paying at convenience stores and post offices. We adopt a very fast weekly delivery schedule on our product roadmap,” she said.

“It is analyse but try not to over analyse what users want. We let traction speak for itself.”

In terms of integration, AllDealsAsia will be onboarding cross-border merchants from Singapore to sell on Matahari Mall. However, Goh says because the two companies do not have much of an overlapping consumer base, there is no clear path towards migrating subscribers to Matahari Mall.

Also Read: Living in the fast lane at MatahariMall’s HQ

This being said, the acquisition of AllDealsAsia by Lippo Group should be seen as a win for Singapore.

AllDealsAsia was one of the early success stories in the Singaporean startup ecosystem. It made waves when funding was dry, government support was just beginning and cultural barriers were more significant.

So, if there is any acquisition to root for, this is it.

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