Micropayment Platform Fewcents Secures $1.6 Million in Seed Funding

A significant number of publishers are concentrating their efforts on converting website visitors into paying subscribers. However, a substantial audience exists – individuals interested in accessing premium articles or videos without committing to a full subscription. Addressing this segment, Fewcents, a Singapore-based fintech startup specializing in “micropayments” for individual content pieces, has announced the successful completion of a $1.6 million seed funding round.

Fewcents' Capabilities and Current Clients

The Fewcents platform facilitates the monetization of articles, video content, and podcasts. It supports transactions in 50 different currencies and is designed to function as an additional revenue stream alongside traditional advertising and subscription models.

Currently, Fewcents serves notable clients including Dainik Jagran, a leading Indian news outlet with a readership of 55 million; DailySocial, an Indonesian news website; and the streaming video platform, Dailymotion. The company generates revenue through a revenue-sharing model with its publishing partners.

Furthermore, Fewcents has established a strategic partnership with Jnomics Media to facilitate expansion into the European market.

Investors in the Seed Round

The funding round saw participation from M Venture Partners and Hustle Fund, alongside contributions from angel investors with extensive experience in fintech, adtech, and media. These include:

• Koh Boon Hwee (former chairman of DBS Bank)
• Kenneth Bishop (former managing director of Southeast Asia at Facebook)
• Jeremy Butteriss (head of partnerships at Stripe)
• Shiv Choudhury (partner and managing director of the Boston Consulting Group)
• Francesco Alberti (former APAC regional sales director for Bloomberg Media Distribution)
• Lisa Gokongwei-Cheng (Summit Media president)
• Prantik Mazumdar (managing director, CXM Group, dentsu International Singapore)
• Saurabh Mittal (Mission Holdings chairman and founder)
• Nitesh Kripalani (former director and country head of Amazon Video India)

Founding Team and Background

Fewcents was launched last year by Abhishek Dadoo and Dushyant Khare. Dadoo previously founded Shoffr, an online-to-offline attribution platform, which was acquired by Affle in 2019.

Khare brings 12 years of experience from Google, including a role as director of strategic partnerships in Southeast Asia and India.

The Micropayment Opportunity

According to Dadoo and Khare, only a small percentage – between 1% and 5% – of a publisher’s active user base is inclined to commit to a monthly subscription. The majority consist of casual or referral-based users, and publishers typically rely on advertising to monetize their traffic.

While other services like Flattr and Axate offer similar pay-per-article functionalities, the effectiveness of micropayments remains a topic of debate within the publishing industry. Notably, Google discontinued plans to implement a tipping feature for websites last year.

Key Challenges and Fewcents' Approach

Successful implementation of a pay-per-content model requires both high-quality content and a seamless payment experience. Fewcents aims to address three core challenges:

First, establishing a widely accessible platform, eliminating the need for users to create new accounts for each website. Second, supporting cross-border payments in local currencies using popular payment methods, such as digital wallets. And third, providing publishers with tools to manage digital rights and content access duration.

Pricing strategy is also crucial. Fewcents currently utilizes traffic data to manually determine optimal pricing for each content piece. “We adjust pricing based on supply and demand within each region to maximize revenue,” Dadoo explained. “Our future AI algorithms will dynamically suggest pricing based on geography and content semantics.”

Data Insights and Future Development

Khare emphasized that by unbundling content, Fewcents can gather more granular data than traditional pageviews, enabling a deeper understanding of market preferences and user segments. This data will be used to develop customized “microbundles” of content.

The ultimate goal of Fewcents is to automatically recommend personalized content bundles to each user, enhancing engagement and revenue generation.