Weeks into its arrival on Singaporean shores, online household services startup, Germany’s Helpling acquires its biggest local rival, Singapore based Spickify
German online home cleaning startup Helpling, who launched their Singaporean operations barely a month ago, have just announced the acquisition of its biggest local competitor, Spickify.
This move will see the Rocket Internet-founded Helpling become one of Singapore’s largest players in the rapidly growing online household services industry. The Spickify trademark will be rebranded as Helpling with immediate effect and its Co-founder and CEO Hoe Yeen Teck has joined Helpling as the new country manager.
According to Helpling, the move to acquire Spickify was a logical one as Spickify, which had already been in operation for some time in Singapore, possessed a know-how of the local market that Helpling did not have. The company went on to add that with Spickify on board, Helpling will now serve over 150 independent cleaners, with the ability to accept over 5,000 hours of cleaning per month across the island.
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“The acquisition was a compelling and purposeful one,” shared Spickify Co-Founder and newly appointed country manager of Helpling Singapore Hoe Yeen Teck. “Spickify was started as a community project to match low-income residents in our neighborhood with cleaning assignments in nearby private apartments.”
Spickify gained public attention when it announced that it would back every cleaning session with a $1 million liability insurance policy, purveying the fear many members of the public had in regards to cleaner reliability. Helpling was quick to add that they would maintain the same system.
The acquisition of Spickify is also a step in what Helpling calls its, “Go East” strategy which will see the company, which till now has been mainly Europe focused, make a big grab for affluent Asian markets like Singapore and the Middle East.
They told e27 that, “Helpling has completed its first phase of its Go East push, having set up in the United Arab Emirates, Australia, and now Singapore. Other markets await us, of course, but for the immediate future we are focused on building up our businesses in these markets.”
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