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The in-store marketing startup will begin the roll-out in tier-1 cities before moving into a number of tier-2 and tier-3 cities

Ksubaka, a Singapore-based in-store advertising startup announced today a joint venture with Hong Kong’s Fullshare Holdings Limited that will open RMB100 million (US$15.3 million) to finance the roll-out of its kiosk marketing machine across mainland China.

For Ksubaka, the strategy of the joint venture is to scale at speed with the goal of distributing 20,000 kiosks (dubbed ‘playSpots’) in China by the end of 2016.

The roll-out will occur in tier-1 cities in the coming weeks with a large number of tier-2 and tier-3 cities to follow. It will initially be focussed on supermarket retail chains but the kiosks will eventually be distributed in cinemas and airports.

Also Read: Can this startup disrupt in-store advertising in Asia?

In September, Ksubaka Co-founder and CEO Julian Corbett told e27 the company was almost exclusively focussed on the Chinese market, so the joint venture news falls in line with that strategy.

e27 asked Corbett if Kusbaka had any bumps in the road between September and today.

“In fact truth be told we have been very fortunate as the retailers we deployed with for pilots immediately loved and supported us scaling when they saw their customers reactions. As for the partnership with Fullshare it has been absolutely fantastic to get to work with these guys. Very much one of the reasons why we felt that this was the best path for us in China is that they completely got what we set out to do and could help accelerate us massively,” he said.

The kiosk is an interactive stand which integrates gamification with a corporate advertising strategy. For example, when we tested it out in September, one of the games was to stack a tower of Oreos so it does not collapse.

The company calls these games ‘Moments of Joy’ (or MoJos) and defines one MoJo as 60 seconds of engagement. According to Ksubaka, it sees over one million of these consumer engagements per day.

It also utilises a real time analytics system so corporations can track whether or not a campaign is successful.

“The beauty of our system is that it is completely plug and play and the entire configuration then takes place over the air. This is really one of the powerful aspects of our platform for remote management, real-time monitoring and updating of content,” said Corbett.

Also Read: These startups want to solve China’s traffic troubles

Major brand partners include, among others, Coca-Cola, Colgate, Dove, Heineken, Kellogg’s, L’Oreal Paris, Nescafe and Oreos.

As a part of the roll-out, Ksubaka will integrate promotional incentives like discounts, loyalty points and coupons into a branded WeChat channel.

The WeChat channel is not an official partnership and Corbett said, “We are simply leveraging one of the most awesome mobile platforms that is a perfect match for our online to offline offering.”

Currently the company’s  China offices are in Shanghai and Guangzhou (HQ is in Singapore and Ksubaka has an office in London). It is considering opening an office in Beijing.

The joint venture will be incorporated as Fudasku in China but will trade as Ksubaka.

Ksubaka is currently hiring about 30 sales people in the coming months to help facilitate the roll-out.

Fullshare holdings is an investment holdings company publically listed on the Hang Seng index. It is primarily focussed on property development but is also one of the largest privately-owned companies in China (giving it resources to branch out).

The post To open US$15.3M for scaling in China, Singapore’s Ksubaka inks joint venture with Fullshare appeared first on e27.

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