Getting your hands on tickets to a huge event in your city may be the least of your worries. Even if you’re lucky to buy access, you could still miss the action if you get stuck in long queues for refreshments or cash machines. Regional cashless payment start-up Pouch wants to get rid of those event woes.
Launched as a rewards platform in 2012, Pouch has evolved into a payment solution. Last year, it introduced NFC (near field communication) payment wristbands that are becoming popular among event organizers.
“Our wristbands solve many event pain points: security, theft, fraud, event flow and control for an overall improved experience for event producers and easy transaction by guests,” Pouch co-founder and CTO David Rapaport says.
The wristbands are ideal for crowded events such as concerts, exhibitions, and fairs. You don’t need to carry cash, which minimizes theft, while merchants are assured that no fraud takes place during transactions because everything’s recorded. The wristbands can also help event organizers stem the sale of counterfeit passes.
Pouch co-founder and CEO Ilya Kravtsov explains how the product works: “When the customer arrives at the event, instead of a normal ticket, he gets an NFC wristband, tops up the balance and that’s it. Inside the event, instead of paying cash or credit card he pays using the NFC wristband. On the other hand, each merchant inside the event doesn’t need a terminal but just a simple NFC phone with the Pouch app installed on it to accept the payment. No internet connection is required.” Guests can top up the wristbands upon entry and at reloading booths on site or link them up with their PayPal accounts. They do not need the Pouch app to top up, but the app will allow them to transfer unused funds from the wristbands back to their Pouch accounts once this feature becomes available.
The startup has offices in the Philippines, Singapore, and Indonesia. It is headquartered in Singapore, but its operations are currently focused on the Philippines, where it has serviced events such as DrinkUp Philippines, Summer Siren, and Univercity. Each event had between 3,000 and 10,000 participants, with transaction amounts reaching up to US$20,000.
Last year, Pouch generated about US$100,000 revenue from selling its wristbands. “We are planning to hit US$500,000 to US$1 million in transaction value and sell more than 100,000 wristbands in the next six months,”.
Apart from this, the company has successfully converted around 30 percent of first-time wristband users into members of its app community.
Pouch wristbands for the Summer Siren event.
Seed funding
The concept of paying using wristbands already exists in mature markets like US and Europe. The popular Lollapalooza festival is one event that made use of them. But the idea is still very new to Southeast Asia. Pouch aims to be a leader in this space in the region, and key to making this happen is the SGD700,000 (nearly US$520,000) in seed funding it recently received from Malaysia-based Captii Ventures, which is listed on the Singapore stock exchange.
Saikit Ng, Captii Ventures general manager, said in a statement that they were impressed with the progress Pouch has achieved so far. “We are excited to support the founders’ vision for the business.”
Rapaport said the investment will be spent to build version 2.0 of Pouch’s wristband.
Ultimately, Kravtsov said their goal is not only to convert NFC wristband users into users of the Pouch app, but to become a third-party payment option.
Currently, the app allows users to monitor upcoming big events and earn rewards for purchases at partner merchants. In the coming months, it will expand features to include purchase of tickets for events, as well as an ewallet for payments.
Pouch downloads have reached 150,000, and 70 percent of these are active users.
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