Singaporean direct-to-consumer (DTC) startup Evo announced Wednesday the completion of its $600,000 seed funding round led by East Ventures.
The round also saw participation from notable angel investors Aaron Tan from Carro, Joel Leong from ShopBack, Mohandass from Spenmo, and Jonathan Tan from Prism+, Evo said in a statement.
According to the statement, the funds raised will be channelled to expanding the brand’s product offerings and doubling down on research and development of new product categories to explore new distribution channels in the DTC sector.
The company broke even in June this year, and is aiming to hit 8 digit annualised revenue by the end of the year. Moreover, Evo is looking to raise another $500,000 in the third quarter of 2022.
“We believe that COVID-19 has drastically sped up e-commerce purchase patterns globally. We aim to be the new age digital native brand that serves customers within the health and wellness category, with better branding, better product content and more affordable pricing by removing the middleman in the mix,” said Roy Ang, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Evo.
Founded in 2020 by former Grab Executives Roy Ang and Teoh Ming Hao (Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer), Evo is a house of brands focusing on health and beauty products which focuses on high quality supplements and hair products built from the same factories as global big brands.
The brand has over eight different products to its name, including its flagship product BounceBack, a livercare and anti-hangover supplement.
Pivoting from live commerce software to DTC, the company has seen 700 percent growth in the last five months and is now operating in ten markets globally. Its team members are based out of Singapore, Indonesia and Korea who have past experience working in big tech companies which includes Grab, Tiktok, Zalora, Elle Magazine, etc.
Besides its flagship product Bounceback, the team also runs their anti-hair loss brand mantou and they are also launching other supplement categories to tackle sleep, hair health and immunity supplements under the stryv brand.
Evo’ co-founders were part of the early team members within Grab Financial Group, where they built GrabPay and other payment products regionally. Before Grab, Roy and Ming Hao both held management positions within e27 and Tech in Asia.
Evo is backed by global institutional investors which includes Bonjour Holding, SparkLab Ventures, Paragon Capital, Farquhar Ventures, East Ventures and super angels which includes co-founders and management teams from Grab, ShopBack, Carro, Prism+, Tiktok, Nets, Spenmo, Nasper, etc.
“We have witnessed Evo’s adeptness and stealth in adapting to the evolving customers’ needs within the health and beauty sector. We believe that the funding will help Evo to further expand their presence regionally and continue to provide the best products that caters to customers’ needs,” said Devina Halim, Principal at East Ventures.
Founded in 2009, East Ventures is a pioneering and leading sector-agnostic venture capital firm headquartered in Singapore, which provides multi-stage investment, including seed and growth for over 200 companies in Southeast Asia. It has notable investments in multiple unicorns including Tokopedia, Traveloka, Carro, Xendit, Shopback, Mercari, and many others.