eCommerce checkout solution Arrow raises $4.8m seed funding

Arrow, the Singapore-based eCommerce checkout solution announced that it has raised $4.8 million in a seed funding round led by Sequoia Capital India.

The round was also supported by Alpha JWC and Guillaume Pousaz’s Zinal Growth, as well as high-profile angel investors such as Ooi Huey Tyng (current board member at AIG and Maxis), Steve Vickers (Chief Operating Officer at Paysend), and Hassan Ahmed (Head of Southeast Asia at Coinbase).

The funds will be used to accelerate Arrow’s mission to make it easier for consumers across SEA to buy online and allow merchants to easily navigate the region’s complex payments and sales channel landscape, according to the announcement.

Founded by payment specialists Liat Beng, Neo and Sebastian Roervig, Arrow’s solution tackles the highly-fragmented SEA payments ecosystem faced by merchants, by working as a layer on top of payment gateways that can be easily integrated to provide a hassle-free checkout experience for customers.

Arrow offers a seamless mobile checkout for cards and alternate payment methods like e-wallets, bank transfers and buy-now-pay-later, catering to the high propensity of mobile-first shoppers across the region. The checkout-as-a-service solution can be embedded across all digital shopping channels such as social media, chat, digital ads, print media and e-commerce sites.

In just 15 months since the launch, 100+ merchants across fashion, beauty, wellness and home decor are using Arrow and some are already seeing >20% increase in conversion rates.

“Our mission is to partner with merchants to create a fast and frictionless checkout experience for consumers – regardless of their location or the channel they are buying on,” said Liat Beng Neo, Co-Founder of Arrow.

In 2021, Asia suffered the world’s highest cart abandonment rates with 74% of customers in APAC abandoning their carts due to clunky checkout processes. This poses a huge problem, which often goes unaddressed by merchants.

“We founded Arrow to change this: imagine Arrow as the express checkout lane at your local supermarket or airport priority immigration lanes. We’re here to change the consumer experience and help merchants to increase their revenue by just improving the checkout experience instead of only focusing on areas like promo codes and performance marketing,” Liat added.