Sopheap Lao is an international serial entrepreneur and a father of 4, who was born in a Chinese-Cambodian-Vietnamese family. He was educated in France and worked as a consultant to global MNO’s for the last 16 years in over 10 countries. Now he is the founder and CEO of Mobexo, a mobile payment company that wants you to forget about payments and that actually is a one-stop-shop financial and added-value services provider for online and SME retailers. After 3.5 years of R&D in France and Vietnam, Sopheap moved to Hong Kong in May 2013 to launch Mobexo’s commercial operations, targeting 10,000+ users and 2,000+ merchants by Q1 2014.
What is your startup?
Mobexo is an e-wallet that seamlessly and effortlessly connects customers to their favorite bars, restaurants, shops and brands and enables them to collect promotional coupons, find deals, pay and get rewarded for their loyalty. For payments, users can either use their Mobexo pre-paid card or add their credit card or link their bank account. It’s a simple, intuitive and secured payment solution.
Mobexo is also a one-stop-shop payment and value-added services web portal for online and SME retailers, who are empowered to easily create, customize, launch, operate and monitor their promotion campaigns, advertisements, loyalty programs and more. We believe that mobile payment is about more than just payments; we have designed Mobexo as a consistent ecosystem to save money and time for merchants and consumers. We are bringing forth a new and better purchase experience hence our motto is to have people forget about payments when using Mobexo.
How did you come up with this idea?
Back in 2009, while I was listening to music with iTunes on my iPhone on a Parisian café terrace, I had to pay my coffee although I forgot my wallet at home. It would have been great if I could select a payment card, just like I select an album on the iTunes and use it for payment.
Who are you targeting and how big is the market in HK/Asia?
Any merchant in any country needs a way to collect payments and to drive customers to the point of payment. Online shops and SME retailers are the main targets. Only in Asia-Pacific, the total mobile payment transactions is planned to reach 370 billion USD in 2016.
What are your futures plans for your startup?
Mobexo has been launched in Hong Kong, a developed country, and Vietnam, an emerging country. Mobexo’s ambition is to prove versatile enough to rollout and become the reference e-wallet in all Asia-Pacific, including China, in the next 5 years. Strategic alliances are the key to Mobexo’s success. Mobexo is available for download on the App Store and Google Play Store.
1 Benefit and 1 Challenge in the HK startup scene?
One of the benefits in setting up in Hong Kong, is that its considered the freest economy and the fastest-paced city in the world, an the ideal place to start a business. Finding the right resources and talents that can take initiatives and risks “thinking out-of-the-box”, and cost-effective workspace are probably the most challenging parts about Hong Kong.
Mobexo on Startbase.HK: Mobexo
Sopheap Lao on Startbase.HK: Sopheap Lao
