Singapore-based e27 is moving beyond its roots as a tech media and events platform with its latest offering Bundles, or product and service packages geared at founding teams in Southeast Asia. Companies with services featured in Bundles include Facebook, Airbnb, Freelancer, WP Engine, 99designs, Zendesk, Google Apps, and Shutterstock, as well as nine co-working spaces throughout the region. There are currently six Bundles at prices ranging from US$9.90 to US$39.90, including packages tailored for marketing, travel, customer service, work collaboration, creative projects, and Web hosting. All six Bundles are available for US$99.90.
Founded in 2006, e27’s offerings include a news site that focuses on startups in Southeast Asia and networking events like Ignite, Founders Drinks and Echelon. Bundles is the company’s first step toward becoming a provider of business solutions for emerging tech companies.
“We see the incorporation of Bundles as a way to give tremendous value to startups and small businesses in the region by offering packages of services that will jumpstart any business in terms of marketing, travel, customer service, collaborative tools, creative projects and hosting,” says Thaddeus Koh, e27’s co-founder and chief operating officer.
Bundles is designed to address challenges faced by founding teams in Southeast Asia, which has a growing but still nascent startup ecosystem. “Most startups are made up of small teams, with limited manpower and resources,” says Koh. The services packaged into each Bundle are offered at a much lower rate than they would be if purchased separately. “For example, if you are constantly traveling, our Travel Bundle takes care of all your travel and co-working needs in the region. If your business has a need for customer relations, our Customer Bundle offers great savings for premium accounts on popular CRM services.”
In February, e27 announced that it had raised about US$615,000 (S$760,000) through a funding round with regional investors, and planned to expand further from the company’s base in Singapore into the rest of Southeast Asia. Participants in that round included B Dash Ventures from Japan, Pinehurst Advisors in Taiwan, Ardent Capital in Thailand, and Dan Neary in Singapore.
The company said at the time that it planned to hire editorial staff in Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines, as well as continue to work on Echelon, its flagship event. e27 is currently in its fourth year of organizing Echelon, which takes place in Singapore and had over 3,000 attendees in 2012. Echelon 2013 will be held from June 4 to 5.