LINE MAN Wongnai has become Thailand’s latest unicorn startup as its worth now exceeds US$1 billion following a successful series-B investment round in late September.
The company is now setting its sights on the next target — becoming a “decacorn” (with a valuation of over $10 billion) and a player in the global tech market.
With the long-term target set, the company is now planning to raise funds on the stock exchange although no exact timeframe has been given.
For the short term, LINE MAN Wongnai aims to improve the potential and strength of its business, both in terms of products and services. An ambitious goal is to expand its current customer base of 10 million to cover all 50 million Internet users in Thailand.
Yod Chinsupakul, CEO of LINE MAN Wongnai, says $265 million was raised in the company’s latest series-B investment round, which was led by Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC and LINE Corporation. They were joined by PTT Oil and Retail Business Plc (OR), Bualuang Ventures, BRV Capital Management, and Taiwan Mobile.
The fund would be spent on expanding the 1,000-strong workforce for product development, including product managers, user experience/user interface (UI/UX) designers, and data scientists, according to the CEO.
He said there was a need to improve and increase the company’s products to compete with foreign players.
Part of the fund raised will be spent on expanding the customer base, with the ultimate goal of turning all 50 million Internet users in Thailand to become LINE MAN Wongnai users, according to the CEO.
“We cannot say that LINE MAN Wongnai has reached the break-even point, but we have set a clear path to achieve our goal,” Yod said.
He added that the company’s operating results have improved gradually every month as it takes a careful approach to investment, with a focus on growth and making profits.
Three major businesses
LINE MAN Wongnai’s first major business involves on-demand services, including food delivery, taxi hailing, messenger service, and goods delivery.
The second business involves offering solutions for restaurants, including merchant applications and point of sale (POS) systems, which are good tools for restaurants to receive orders, do promotional campaigns, and deal with the general management of their business.
The third business involves other services for those in the LINE MAN Wongnai ecosystem, which includes restaurants, consumers and delivery riders. The services cover advertising and finance, with more being planned for the future.
Thailand’s food delivery market has seen a growth of 4.2 times over the past two years while LINE MAN Wongnai has expanded 15 times in this area. Following the merger between LINE MAN and Wongnai, there are now more than 100,000 food shops on the LINE MAN Wongnai platform, covering 246 districts in all 77 provinces of Thailand. As a result, LINE MAN Wongnai is a leader in the food delivery market.
Meanwhile, its POS business is fast growing and has become a market leader as well. The POS system acts like an operating system for a restaurant business, dealing with both on-site and online orders.
The services of LINE MAN Wongnai have helped small businesses to grow. It was found that shops that used all three of its services saw average business growth of 2.8 times.
“We have grown tremendously and we are confident that LINE MAN Wongnai is playing an important role in the Thai economy. We have created a large number of jobs — hundreds of thousands for delivery riders and waiters. Those are in addition to more than 10 million customers, 80 per cent of whom use food delivery services,” Yod said.
LINE MAN Wongnai has a mission to make lives better and easier for Thais, whether they are consumers, shop owners or delivery riders. Many of the more than 100,000 shops in its ecosystem cater to online orders only. The several thousands of its delivery riders earn more than the average minimum wages.
“We are a Thai-owned company that is headquartered in Thailand. Our employees and computer engineers are here. We have a diversity of innovations with features that can be adjusted to suit the Thai market,” the CEO said.
According to him, the company has 300-400 computer engineers in Thailand. They managed to develop a food delivery system that can connect with the Thai government’s Kon La Krueng co-payment scheme.
“As a result, LINE MAN Wongnai attained a 75 per cent share in the food delivery market of Kon La Krueng’s fourth phase,” Yod said.
For the CEO, LINE MAN Wongnai also has an obligation on sustainability, as its growth could bring impacts on the environment. Over the past year, many consumers denied plastic cutlery, helping LINE MAN Wongnai to reduce plastic use by 2,400 tons, according to him.
National champion vs super app
Yod and three friends founded Wongnai in 2010, starting with reviews of food shops before expanding to beauty salons. In 2016, Wongnai entered an alliance deal with LINE MAN. Two years later came the Wongnai POS for restaurants, which became a milestone for Wongnai.
In 2019, LINE invested in Wongnai and a year later LINE MAN merged with Wongnai to become “LINE MAN Wongnai”. Work had been underway quietly, in a “stealth mode”, for two years before the successful US$265-million series-B funding was announced.
The brand “LINE MAN Wongnai” is only two years old, but it is based on over a decade of experience and understanding of the Thais.
Wongnai — as LINE MAN Wongnai — is one of Thailand’s early startups that managed to survive the disruption wave and reach the series-B “shore” now. As a founder, Yod prefers to call LINE MAN Wongnai a “national champion” rather than a “super app” — a term he views as marketing rhetoric.
The assets of LINE MAN Wongnai, which include the country’s largest network of food shops covering over 100,000 POS locations, represent valuable data regarding the “pulses” of many Thai businesses and the Thai economy.
It is one of LINE’s largest online platforms in Thailand. LINE MAN Wongnai is joining forces with LINE while making use of the latter’s potential. This is an advantage for LINE MAN Wongnai as it means greater potential for its services and businesses through common marketing campaigns with LINE.
LINE MAN Wongnai is a super app in the making, judging from its workforce, a business plan that aims at the expansion of products and services, as well as its market base.
