Digital tech startup Squadzip closes successful seed funding

Squadzip is a mobile SaaS targeting frontline employees like sales reps or customer service agents
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L-R: Alex Alabiso, Kickstart head for portfolio development; Justine Castro-Mercado, Squadzip director; Roman Mercado, Squadzip co-founder and chief executive officer; Minette Navarrete, Kickstart president; Dan Siazon, Kickstart senior vice-president and treasurer; and Joaquin Barandino, Squadzip co-founder and chief technology officer. Silicon Valley-based global accelerator Plug and Play Tech Center has made its first investment in the Philippines by funding an undisclosed seed round into Manila-based SaaS company Squadzip . The funding was made in partnership with Manila’s Kickstart Ventures, a wholly owned subsidiary VC firm of the major Philippine telco Globe Telecommunication. “Squadzip is the first investment of Plug and Play in the Philippines so we are excited to work with Roman and his team and we hope to accelerate Squadzip’s potential globalization, possibly to become the next Salesforce or Sugar,” said Plug and Play Co-founder and Vice President Jojo Flores in an official statement. Squadzip says the funding will be used for technical improvements as well as scaling its domestic and international distribution. Founded in July 2014, the startup has built a mobile-first SaaS platform targeting frontline employees (sales, customer service etc. ) and helping back-end managers easily organise and analyse customer data management. “For our enterprise customers, Squadzip is like their own private company social media platform and wiki,” said Roman Mercado, Squadzip CEO and Co-founder in an official statement. Also Read:  Markus Bihler says now is time for HappyFresh to harvest the Philippines
Mobility is the key attribute of the Squadzip product and Mercado explained employee activities are posted on a live feed with time- and location-stamps so business intelligence can be captured, classified and organized using Intel Pages. “Also, sales teams involved in specific deals can collaborate and access data from anywhere in the world,” he added. Plug and Play operates all over the world and other Asian partnerships besides the Philippines exist in China, Hong Kong Singapore and South Korea. The partnership between Plug and Play and Kickstart Ventures was formed in May 2013. In October 2015 Kickstart  invested an undisclosed amount in MedTech startup Lifetrack Medical Systems.


Squadzip seed fund marks first Plug and Play investment in Philippines

tomnoda@dealstreetasia.com
February 14, 2016: &nbsp
Venture capital Kickstart Ventures Inc and Silicon Valley accelerator Plug and Play Tech Center have co-invested an undisclosed amount of seed fund in Squadzip, a mobile-first software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform. It was the first co-investment made by the two companies and also marked the first investment of Plug and Play in the Philippines. Kickstart Ventures is Globe Telecom Inc’s wholly-owned corporate venture capital subsidiary, backed by SingTel and the Ayala Corporation . As a SaaS platform, Squadzip applies the ease of use and familiarity of popular social media platforms to a sales and project management context. Squadzip CEO and co-founder Roman Mercado started Squadzip 18 months ago and has gained a portfolio of enterprise users across multiple industries. He expressed confidence that with the fresh funds, they are in an even greater position to help more businesses serve their customers better and faster while saving them time and money. The startup is now also seen to further improve its product and scale distribution locally and overseas. Also read: Kickstart invests in Cogito, takes portfolio in PH to 20 startups
Kickstart Ventures president Minette Navarrete said Squadzip is an enterprise solution designed to be frontline-focused, and architected to be enterprise-grade. “Frontliners and head office management share the goal of growing their business, delivering great quality service to customers, and sharing information in real-time, frequently over multiple locations,” Navarrete said. “Squadzip’s intuitive user interface makes it easy for distributed teams to collaborate and report information and the back-end keeps it simple for management to make good decisions and communicate these quickly. This balance makes Squadzip a powerful tool in business development in today’s fast-paced environment.”
Acording to Plug and Play co-founder and vice president Jojo Flores, Squadzip fits in their criteria of CRM that enhances user experience. “[Squadzip’s] approach to ease of use and intuitive tagging of information I believe is key to its success,” Flores said. “Squadzip is the first investment of Plug and Play in the Philippines so we’re excited to work with Roman and his team and we hope to accelerate Squadzip’s potential globalization, possibly to become the next Salesforce or Sugar.”
Mercado was inspired to make Squadzip based on his own frustrations in using productivity solutions while he was working in enterprise sales for medical, banking, and digital media industries. Also read: Silicon Valley’s Plug and Play to invest more in PH startups
How it started
Mercado in his corporate life saw many corporations spend huge amounts of money into enterprise solutions, translating to high upfront fees, hardware cost, complex user trainings, and time delays. These solutions ranged from the free to typically expensive legacy enterprise platforms. This made Mercado tap colleague and now CTO/ co-founder Joaquin Barandino to help build Squadzip that will serve as productivity tool for businesses that allows teams to communicate in real-time and share data without having to endure lengthy forms. “For our enterprise customers, Squadzip is like their own private company social media platform and wiki. Activities are posted in real time on a live feed which are time- and location-stamped, while business intelligence is captured from each post to be classified and organized easily and in real time into Intel Pages. Also, sales teams involved in specific deals can collaborate and access data from anywhere in the world,” Mercado said. Social media link
Both Mercado and Barandino capitalised on the Filipinos’ proclivity for social media apps in order to ensure easy adoption by those assigned to use Squadzip. Instead of the traditional task- and form-based paradigm commonly seen in other solutions, they created a hashtagging system called “ziptags” based on natural reporting behavior which allows users to quickly categorise, search, and retrieve data on customer histories, competitors, and service issues as well as added powerful geo-location and time-stamp features that allow businesses to know what is going on and where it is happening. Since July 2014 when Squadzip was adopted by their first paying enterprise client, it is now in smartphones carried by teams traveling to different parts of the world. Squadzip is being applied in various use cases including sales, customer relationship management, and project management. Also read:


Kickstart, Plug and Play co-invest in PH mobile-first SaaS platform Squadzip

Metropolitan Bank & Trust

Seed VC

Squadzip is a cloud based enterprise solution built primarily for mobile. Designed to help businesses manage sales, and customer data better, without the usual headaches and training requirements associated with enterprise software.

Date	11/4/2015
Round	Seed VC
Amount
Investors	Kickstart Ventures, and Plug and Play Ventures
Valuation
Revenue	0 FY undefined
Sources	1

First funding	Last Funding	Investor	Rounds	Board Seats	Type	Location
11/4/2015	11/4/2015	Plug and Play Ventures	1 Seed VC		Venture Capital	California
00/00/0000	00/00/0000	Kickstart Ventures	Subscribe to see more		Corporate Venture	Philippines

First funding	11/4/2015	00/00/0000
Last Funding	11/4/2015	00/00/0000
Investor	Plug and Play Ventures	Kickstart Ventures
Rounds	1 Seed VC	Subscribe to see more
Board Seats
Type	Venture Capital	Corporate Venture
Location	California	Philippines

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