Singapore based company HT Overseas Pte Ltd is a wholly-owned subsidiary of India’s HT Media Limited.

The deal with HT Singapore is expected help Sagoon reach nearly 460 million Indian internet users, through different media properties owned by HT Media. “We are thrilled to enter into this agreement with such an influential partner like HT Singapore. The reach of Hindustan Times will enable us to further connect with a large market of Indian internet users, which is second largest in the world,” said GovindaGiri, founder and CEO, Sagoon.

HT Media owns English newspapers Hindustan Times and Mint, and Hindi daily Hindustan, as well as several other digital properties and FM radio stations in India. “Our investment in Sagoon is a testament to the wonderful product that they have built and to the preferred social experience they are providing to users around the globe. We truly believe Sagoon has the potential to change the way people connect, share, and earn via social media and we have great excitement to be part of the journey,” said AteevChadda, Head of Equity Team, Hindustan Times.

Social commerce app Sagoon, which enables its users to connect, share, and earn, is set to release its innovative Social Smart Card by the end of 2018 allowing Sagoon users to earn money while shopping, redeeming coupons, and gifting their loved ones.Social Smart Card is an online digital card that helps allows users shop, redeem coupons, and gift their loved ones.

According to the company, the Social Smart Card users benefits such as cashbacks and discounts on future purchases. if user A and user B give a $50 gift card to user C, the receiver could use the $100 to spend at partner stores, and this would get users A and B get a 5 percent cashback. User C gets discounts at partner vendors, and Sagoon earns 10 percent revenue on the amount spent, making it a win-win for all. Every Sagoon user gets a Social Smart Card when they create a profile and earn 5 percent of every transaction as cashback.

Currently in South and Southeast Asia, only 37 per cent of the population uses social media. There is a clear disconnect between available social media platforms and what users worldwide are interested in. According to recent research, e-commerce and use-to-user commerce are what Asian users are most interested in.

As many of the most popular social media platforms in South Asia (YouTube, Facebook, etc.) were created in the U.S. with a western audience in mind, Sagoon is claimed to have worked to understand the interests of the South Asian user and determined that there is a major void to fill in the social commerce space.

Sagoon is an early-stage social commerce platform that enables users to connect, share, and shop to earn rewards. The US-based platform recently launched its mobile app in India. As per the app developers, Sagoon and has already garnered more than 2.2 million user base. Initially launched in 2009 as a search engine, Sagoon evolved into a social commerce platform in 2014, with the mission to help people to connect, share, and earn.

Apart from this, Sagoon is also working towards developing and launching an iOS app. According to Sagoon, the social smart card and the iOS app will be proved as game-changers, particularly within the $300 billion social ecommerce market.

Earlier in January, it had successfully launched the Sagoon mobile app for Android. Hindi film actor Shraddha Kapoor had unveiled the Sagoon app in New Delhi. The launch event focused on the theme ‘Creating a new social world from South Asia’. With more than 580,000 app downloads in just two months, Sagoon now boasts 1.6 million users across its mobile and web-based social commerce platform. The Company continues to build market share, onboarding those within the 2.8 billion social network users across the globe who are looking for a better social experience than is provided by current platforms.

The Company had launched a Regulation A+ offering 2017, offering Class C common stock at $23 per share with a minimum investment of $1,000. Since, it has raised approximately $3.4M from more than 3,000 investors globally that share Sagoon’s vision of a social commerce platform that helps users to Connect, Share, and Earn. The company raised its other $1.4M privately in early 2016.

Regulation A+ offerings provide an opportunity for the non-accredited general public to invest and own stock in the company. The company is still accepting investments from public and institutional investors and can be accessed through its website www.sagoon.com/invest, where the Offering Circular is posted.

Sagoon claims to be different from other similar social media platforms. It allows users to connect with like-minded people, share their personal experiences, and earn rewards while shopping. In addition to a focus on social commerce, Sagoon is insisting to change the way that users socialize with features such as Mood Talk and Secret. Often times people do not want to share how they are truly feeling on social media, but instead want to show themselves always out having fun and being happy. Mood Talk enables users to share a real-time expression of how they’re feeling- whether good or bad- to open up a discussion with friends and family. The Secret feature is also important because it allows users to share their experiences and questions in a space free of judgement.

Headquartered in the US, the social media platform was founded by GovindaGiri, who has worked for 15 years in the US in the government and private sectors. He founded Sagoon with Swati Dayal, who has over eight years of experience in web and mobile development, and KabinSitoula who comes with 20 years of experience in finance and marketing.

In July 2014, Sagoon’s beta version 1.0 was launched in the US. In January 2015, Sagoon India was registered as 100 percent subsidiary of Sagoon Inc, followed by the announcement of seed-funding round in April 2015 to scale up the business. It raised $500,000 by the end of the funding round. In the same year, the then PM of Nepal, KP Oli launched Sagoon version 2.0 – the next generation social network – as a public beta in Kathmandu. By the end of the first funding round, the company had raised over $1.6 million from more than 1600 people.

Sagoon in 2009, I had the vision of rivaling the big search engines like Google and Bing. However, there was a lack of market opportunity in this space. After 14 months of trial and error, facing a rough capital environment, and a successful patent filing, Sagoon transitioned into a social platform in 2014 after I realized the need for a more globally appealing app.