Social e-commerce platform targeting local housewife groups.
Image source: chilibeli’s official website
According to foreign media reported that on March 20, 2020, it was only established for 7 months Indonesian social e-commerce platform “ Chilibel i” (Chinese: Chili Pinpin) announced the completion of a $ 10 million Series A financing The US venture capital agency Lightspeed Venture Partners led the investment. Golden Gate Ventures , Sequoia Surge , Kinesys Group and Alto Partners have participated. In October last year, Peppers completed a seed round of financing led by Sequoia Surge, an accelerator project hatched by Sequoia Capital.
Lightspeed Venture Partners, the lead investor of this investment, opened its first Southeast Asian office in Singapore in February this year. In 2018, it has hatched Grab, the largest ride-hailing company in Southeast Asia, and in 2019 Participated in seed round financing of Indonesian startup Shipper.
“Chilibeli” is a leading, community-based social e-commerce startup based in Indonesia, founded by Alex Feng, Damon Yue and Matt Li in 201Co-founded in July 9th, it connects farmers, suppliers and consumers through a network of agents, integrates online and offline channels, and makes it possible to retail products at home. “Chilibeli” focuses on low-cost, fresh products. Most of its agents (“Mitra” in Indonesian) are housewives. They can not only buy cheaper products from the platform than the market, but also Earn spreads in transactions to increase additional household income. It is reported that since its inception, the company claims that its monthly growth rate is 150%, directly creating more than 300 jobs and indirectly creating thousands of jobs.
The company’s business model is to provide individuals with a sales platform that encourages individuals to use their social media channels and instant messaging software to share various types of grocery products in order to earn commissions from various sales links.
The CEO of “Chilibeli” said that the new round of financing is mainly used to continue to develop the company’s communities in Jakarta, Tangerang and Depok, as well as extend its reach to Bogor and Bekasi. Part of the funds will be used to improve the user interface of the product, enhance the user experience, and optimize the company’s warehousing at Debord.
“From a multi-party analysis, the team of Chili Fighting has achieved many achievements that the platform has not yet achieved: Building a trusted social network ,” said Justin Hall, a partner of Golden Gate Ventures, “By building a technology platform that can infiltrate the daily lives of Indonesians, Chili Fighting unlocks new ways to shop, collaborate and even make a living.”
The success of “Chilibeli” is inseparable from the social and economic environment of the Indonesian local market. It is reported that although local acceptance of online shopping and electronic payment is high, social penetration is still low; at the same time, the cost of food and grocery often accounts for 20% of the total expenditure of an Indonesian household, and the new retail market is still very Great development space. In addition, housewives generally hold the power of family finances, and they also seek to open source to gain family extras when throttling, and the platform provides them with such an opportunity to start with the social relationship between the community and the neighborhood, Established a trust-based social retail network.
As one of the players who use technology to affect farmers and consumers, “Chilibeli” has many competitors on the track, such as Kedai Sayur, TaniHub and Sayurbox.