Bindo is a

retail Retail is the sale of goods and services to consumers, in contrast to wholesaling, which is sale to business or institutional customers. A retailer purchases goods in large quantities from manufacturers, directly or through a wholesaler, and t ...

technology Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in medicine, science, ...

company, headquartered in

New York, NY New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

with APAC headquarters in

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

. Its core product is a cloud-based

point of sale The point of sale (POS) or point of purchase (POP) is the time and place at which a retail transaction is completed. At the point of sale, the merchant calculates the amount owed by the customer, indicates that amount, may prepare an invoice f ...

system that enables online shopping for the end consumer. Bindo's

hyperlocal Hyperlocal is information oriented around a well-defined community with its primary focus directed toward the concerns of the population in that community. The term can be used as a noun in isolation or as a modifier of some other term (e.g. new ...

marketplace allows merchants to run their stores and merchandise online and connect them with consumers in their neighborhood. Bindo creates a real-time product graph that connects brands, consumers, and merchants.

History

Bindo was founded in October 2010, by JoMing Au, Brad Lauster and Jason Ngan. It was initially started by two friends, Ngan and Au, who both sold electronics on eCommerce websites during their college days. After graduation, Au worked in aerospace and Ngan in financial engineering. After a while, on the side, they started to work on Bindo with the initial intention of trying to index available local inventory online. Ngan then met Lauster who shared a vision that shopping online at local stores shouldn’t be so difficult. They then decided to work together to create a marketplace to strengthen local economies by indexing the products and making it accessible through the local stores. It was initially launched in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

. The idea to start a hyperlocal marketplace got the attention of social media expert

Gary Vaynerchuk Gary Vaynerchuk (born Gennady Vaynerchuk; November 14, 1975; , ), commonly known as Gary Vee, is a Soviet-born American entrepreneur, author, speaker, and Internet personality. He is a co-founder of the restaurant reservation software company Re ...

, who then went on to become one of Bindo’s investors. Bindo had gained 180,000 customers and processed over $500 million in sales. in May 2014, Bindo raised seed funding in the amount of $1.8 MM majorly led by Vaynerchuk, Singapore based East Ventures and New York based

Metamorphic Ventures Compound (formerly known as Metamorphic Ventures) is a New York-based seed fund that invests in startup and early-stage technology companies. In March 2014, the company announced a new fund with close to $70 million. It also added Google vice pres ...

, along with angel investors.

Technology

Bindo POS

Bindo has a point of sale system (POS) that allows merchants to add and manage their inventory in the cloud, enabling in-store purchases. Its platform provides retail store owners with inventory management tools and generates on-demand real-time reports and

analytics Analytics is the systematic computational analysis of data or statistics. It is used for the discovery, interpretation, and communication of meaningful patterns in data. It also entails applying data patterns toward effective decision-making. It ...

Bindo Marketplace

The Bindo Marketplace brings stores online, connecting merchants directly with local buyers and enabling them to make same-day delivery purchases from the Bindo iPhone app. The in-store and e-commerce transactions are all synchronized in real-time with Bindo POS to manage and check online inventory.

Payments

Bindo POS works with processing partners to provide seamless integration with its Point of Sale solution. It is one of the first iPad POS players to also roll out EMV chip + pin and EMV chip + signature solutions. In September 2014, Bindo announced support for Apple Pay and NFC contactless payments.

Reception

After its beta launch in Manhattan, the application grabbed the attention of 180,000 customers. According to critics, the application is similar to other POS application launched in the recent past. Ngan later clarified that Bindo POS differentiates from its other iPad POS competitors, by focusing more on building a hyperlocal marketplace and building an online-to-offline network.

References

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External links

Official website
Companies of Singapore