2023年6月26日

Utu,旅遊科技公司幫助傳單得到更多的免稅購物,今天宣布它已經籌集了3500萬美元的B係列由SC企業。的一部分資金用於收購CardsPal,新加坡fintech提供優惠和促銷附近的用戶。pandemic-induced旅行中斷期間,utu致力於建立與旅遊合作,連鎖酒店和零售品牌。公司指出,盡管旅遊反彈,隻有約1%的風險投資在過去的15年裏已經去旅行,主要是短期租賃的款待。Utu免稅購物的目標是創造創新領域,遊客可以收回購買增值稅。Utu提供客戶免稅卡,這有兩個主要產品。首先,免稅的購物者可以選擇飛行裏程或酒店點而不是增值稅退款。或者他們可以選擇立即存儲憑證,等於120%的增值稅或銷售稅海外購物時支付。Utu說,零售商,航空公司、酒店和其他組織,與他們合作不僅可以增加客戶忠誠度,但也從旅遊購物收入成長40%。Utu全球航空公司的合作夥伴包括10法航荷航,阿聯酋航空公司,卡塔爾航空公司,新加坡航空公司,以及雅高集團,歐洲大型酒店品牌之一。 To facilitate payments, utu works with fintech partners with Nium and also uses its own proprietary tech. It plans to announce more partnerships later this year. Customer pay VAT upfront, and can reclaim it through operators like Planet or Global Blue. But they don’t get back the full amount of VAT, which is where utu comes in. Utu co-founder Asad Jumabhoy spent eight years working in the duty-free business, before another 25 in tax-free shopping. While operating fashion and perfume stores at Changi Airport in Singapore in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Jumabhoy started a tax refund business that evolved into Global Blue. After selling Global Blue in 2012, Jumabhoy decided to take his understanding of retail margins, value-added taxes and customer shopping habits to develop utu. “The way we think about our work is that we are unbuilding new product layers on top of the existing tax-free shopping infrastructure that unlocks value for all stakeholders connected to tourist shopping—brands, tourists and our VAT refund partners,” he said. Jumabhoy said even though tax-free shopping is a common practice, there are still two problems. The first is that the process of getting VAT refunds is difficult, and secondly, tourists only get part of their VAT spending back. Utu focuses on the second problem and wants to give tourists more value when they shop. For example, they can receive over 90% of their refund value in airline frequent flyer miles. The CardsPal acquisition will give utu a digital marketplace, a promotions engine and self-service merchant registration portal. It will also expedite utu’s rollout in markets like France and Italy, plus another 50 countries that offer VAT and GST refunds. Utu’s funding will be used to grow its product distribution across all countries that offer a VAT refund service, invest in technology and new products and strengthening its management to execute its growth plan.