Singapore-based social e-commerce startup WEBUY said today it has completed its Series A investment round at US$6 million, led by Wavemaker Partners.
Centauri Fund, the VC arm of Telkom Indonesia and a unit of South Korea’s KB Financial Group, besides Rocket Internet VC’s investment division Global Founders Capital (GFC), also joined the round.
The startup will use the capital for hiring, improving its data-driven platform and further expanding its regional footprint into Southeast Asia, starting with Vietnam and the Philippines.
WEBUY also looks to partner with ByteDance, parent of TikTok, to accelerate its social capabilities in Q1 2021. More details of this partnership are awaited.
The latest round brings WEBUY’s total financing raised so far to US$9 million, which also includes a seed round from GFC and a local family fund in February this year.
The social commerce platform was founded in 2019 a group of seasoned e-commerce entrepreneurs, including Vincent Xue (co-founder and former Chief Strategy Officer of ezbuy.
WEBUY runs on a group buying model by harnessing the strength of social media to transform the current online e-commerce model into a more interactive and community-driven one. It is designed to mimic social media influencer-driven interactions to increase the visibility of small merchants among a new generation of e-commerce consumers.
Since the previous fundraise, it expanded into Malaysia and Indonesia. It also claims to have grown 5x and is currently supporting 3,000 group leaders, who collate and purchase orders for over 100,000 consumers across its three markets.
The mobile app was launched in August.
The startup has partnerships with organisations, such as Taiwan Trade Center Singapore, to offer consumers affordable, premium quality, international and local F&B products. Group leaders regularly update their buyer communities with the latest offers and product offerings, influencing their purchases.
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