Referral marketing start-up Anafore secures first round of financing

Innovative referral service available on five global e-commerce platforms including Etsy, Magento, Volusion and Shopify

May 24th, 2011 - SINGAPORE – Anafore Pte Ltd, the provider of an innovative referral marketing solution that plugs directly into online e-commerce platforms, today announced a round of financing from Singapore-based BAF Spectrum, Toivo Annus - the engineering co-founder of Skype, and SPRING SEEDS Capital – a wholly owned subsidiary of SPRING Singapore that co-invests in local start-ups.

Anafore is a true referral marketing service that plugs in seamlessly with a merchant’s existing e-commerce platform. After a purchase has been completed, the buyer receives a coupon from the merchant with a discount that can be used at the online store. The buyer then shares this coupon with his friends to give them a time-limited opportunity to purchase the merchant’s products at a discount.

“The rise of social networking gives us an unprecedented ability to connect merchants and buyers more efficiently and make irrelevant ads a thing of the past. We’re excited about this partnership with BAF Spectrum which gives us an incredible opportunity to realize this vision”, said Dinesh Raju, CEO and co-founder of Anafore.

“Anafore is on the cutting edge of smart, online marketing solutions. They provide a compelling value to any online merchant by instantly increasing sales. We plan to work with the strong founding team to develop a suite of next-generation social network-powered tools to improve further the way buyers and sellers interact online”, said William Klippgen, Executive Director of BAF Spectrum. Mr. Klippgen was a co-founder of European shopping mega-portal Kelkoo and is leading BAF Spectrum’s investment portfolio in digital media start-ups. He recently joined the Anafore Board of Directors alongside Sanjeev Shah, Managing Director of BAF Spectrum.



About Anafore Pte Ltd – www.anafore.com
Founded in 2009, Anafore provides an innovative web service that makes it easy for small and medium e-commerce merchants to carry out highly effective customer referral programs. Anafore is backed by BAF Spectrum and SPRING SEEDS Capital Pte Ltd. It is part of the i.Jam programme of the Media Development Authority of Singapore (MDA).

About BAF Spectrum Pte Ltd – www.bafspectrum.com
BAF Spectrum invests in fast-growing and highly scalable Asian companies with a global market potential. Its current portfolio includes Anacle Systems (www.anacle.com), Progeniq (www.progeniq.com), Mozat (www.mozat.com) and iXiGO (www.ixigo.com). The Singapore- based fund has committed more than USD $14m for early- stage ventures; partly financed through the Business Angel Scheme (BAS) operated by SPRING SEEDS Capital, a wholly owned subsidiary of SPRING Singapore that co-invests in local start-ups. BAF Spectrum’s six executive directors from Asia and Europe represent a wide cross-section of business experience. For more information about BAF Spectrum and director profiles, please visit www.bafspectrum.com.

Contact Information

Justin Kwok

PR manager

Anafore Ptd Ltd

Contact via E-mail