FOR IMMEDIATE PRESS RELEASE PRESS CONTACT

Benedict Wong VP Business Development at Bindo

ben.wong@bindo.com +852 6202­5613

+1 (212) 603­9715

NYC RETAIL STARTUP BINDO RAISES USD1.8M SEED ROUND AND OPENS NEW OFFICE IN SINGAPORE

Bindo Goes Live : An iPad POS That Helps Small Businesses Compete with Amazon

MAY 29th, 2014 (New York, NY) ­ Bindo, a New York­based retail startup has just raised an oversubscribed $1.8mn seed round for international expansion. The round is co­led by Gary

Vaynerchuk, a renowned social media and wine expert, and Singapore/Tokyo­based East

Ventures. Other investors include NYC­based Metamorphic Ventures, and other private angels

with decades of experience in brick and mortar retail, ecommerce and internet­related

businesses.

Bindo has developed a cloud­based iPad Point of Sale (POS) system that enables 24/7 online

shopping for the end consumer. Not only does the POS offer a comprehensive array of features

ranging from inventory management to customer relationship management (CRM), Bindo offers

merchants the mobility to consult, sell, and close the deal simultaneously, providing a VIP

experience to every customer. Its CRM creates customer profiles at the point of checkout

enabling the merchant to later engage with the customer post­sale.

More uniquely, merchants can launch their entire store online onto web and mobile with one click

and efficiently operate omni­channel commerce with one unified inventory, saving hours of store

management tasks each week. This turns the POS into a powerful retail platform capable of true

online and offline commerce. Bindo Marketplace then aggregates all the stores on the Bindo

network, onto one consumer platform, and allows consumers to shop from their favorite

neighborhood store online, and have it delivered within hours

“Our mission at Bindo is really to strengthen local economies and support local businesses,

whilst making shopping more convenient for consumers”, said Brad Lauster, cofounder of Bindo.

“Having personally experienced the difficulties small business face selling online, we wanted to

find a way to bring merchants online without diluting brand awareness. We are not interested in

simply providing an online storefront for merchants to promote themselves; we are aggressively

co­marketing our marketplace with our merchants so that together, we have the means to battle

the Goliaths of e­commerce.”

The Bindo Marketplace app also makes mobile commerce and e­commerce infinitely more

convenient for the consumer, by bridging the gap between online and offline retail. In­store

purchases are saved, viewable and reorderable on the mobile app, and loyalty points are tracked

across multiple channels. It is a hyperlocal marketplace for consumers that want to find and purchase a particular product in their neighborhood stores online, which they can do so scanning

the barcode with their app.

Bindo will split the funding equally between development and sales. The development team will

focus on delivering the Marketplace and providing a seamless experience for both merchant and

consumer. Since Bindo’s private beta launch, inbound leads have been increasing exponentially

each month; substantial resources will be allocated to scaling the sales team to support the

rapidly growing number of merchant demo requests.

ABOUT (BINDO)

Bindo is a NYC startup with offices in Hong Kong. It was founded in 2011 by Jason Ngan and Brad Lauster. Bindo has developed a cloud­based iPad POS (Point­of­Sale) that enables online shopping for the end consumer. In a few months, it will be releasing Bindo Marketplace: a consumer app that aggregates all the stores using Bindo POS onto one platform, allowing consumers to purchase directly online from their favorite neighborhood store, and have it delivered. In doing so, Bindo aims to close the loop between the online and the offline. As the network grows, Bindo becomes a real­time product graph, connecting brands, consumers and merchants.