InVent, the venture-capital arm of Intouch Holdings Plc has invested Bt40 million in a Series B financing round for Ecartstudio, one of Thailand’s leading enterprise location-based application developers and consultants. Ecartstudio’s latest development is a Smart-City Platform for Business to Business (B2B) and Business to Consumer (B2C) interactions, to support the smart-city concept and promote a more convenient lifetstyle, with users enjoying ‘time well spent’. The funding will be used to expand Ecartstudio’s business and support the development of products and services that are expected to make it the leader in smart-city platforms in Thailand within three to five years.
Dr. Narongpon Boonsongpaisan, Head of InVent, the venture-capital arm of Intouch Holdings Plc, said that “location- and map-based applications were very useful for many businesses, such as when searching for restaurants, food and product deliveries, ordering taxis, media advertisements and sales promotions via mobile phones. Ecartstudio is leading the development of location-based services technology, to address the needs of consumers, businesses and even the government in offering services and manipulating the city to increase efficiency, create revenue and reduce costs. The use of location-based applications by service businesses, retail, transportation, real estate, media advertising and other businesses has huge potential for growth,”
Wutthikorn Manomaiwiboon, Chief Executive Officer of Ecartstudio, said the move would leverage his company’s ability to expand its customer base, its business network and corporate customers, as well as enabling it to penetrate regional markets. The investment will be used to develop products and services as well as increasing Ecartstudio’s staff, in order to achieve its goal of becoming the leader in smart-city platforms and addressing many aspects of customer usage over the next three to five years.”
Over the past two years, Ecartstudio has developed smart-city platforms for both B2B and B2C interaction. These have been additional to its development of web-based and enterprise-location-based applications. Smartphones are playing an increasingly important role in people’s daily lives, from communications to information searching, receiving information, and entertainment. Ecartstudio sees business opportunities in offering lifestyle-based
