iPrice, the
e-commerce startup that wants to be the gateway to online retail in
Southeast Asia, is back in the money after raising $1.2 million.
Asia Venture Group (AVG) — which
financed the company’s previous $550,000 raise
— led the round, which also saw participation from 500 Startups’ ‘500
Durians’ fund for Southeast Asia, IMJ, Venturra, F2 Capital
and Startstrike Ventures.
That’s not quite all. iPrice, which makes its money sending
traffic to e-commerce services and helping consumers pick through a
multitude of services in seven countries, has also hired a new
CEO. David Chmelar, who was previously with the Boston Consulting Group
and most recently was a board member at Wuestenrot Bank in the Czech
Republic, has taken the hot seat. Heinrich Wendel, the former Microsoft
Seattle product manager who was the founding CEO, is moving to a more
hands-on role.
“Heinrich is still here and is absolutely a key person, but now that
we are 70 [staff] — and [will] soon [be] close to 100 — it requires
additional management capacity so that Heinrich can ensure
sufficient focus on the product,” Chmelar told TechCrunch in an
interview.
Chmelar, who said he was looking for a challenge in a growth
market following time spent in Europe and Canada, explained that the
company is moving into new areas. Beyond its website, which is designed
to help visitors find the best prices for products across multiple
online retail sites, iPrice is also working with publishers to offer
coupons.
Its coupon program is being run with a selection of partners
that includes Says.com in Malaysia and news site Rappler in the
Philippines. Those publishers are using coupon pages — which are
whitelabelled from iPrice — to offer e-commerce services to their
readers.
iPrice-powered coupons on Says.com
That experience, Chmelar said, is designed to be about
product discovery, whereas iPrice.com is about providing an almost
directory-like experience for finding specific items. In both cases,
iPrice takes a cut of any sales generated by visitors clicking its
links, but it shares those fees with publishers. Chmelar declined to
disclose the specifics of iPrice’s monetization and its revenue sharing
agreement with partners.
In addition to hiring “across the board” — Chmelar said the
iPrice headcount could double over the next year — the company is also
working to improve its mobile web design. While mobile accounts for more
than half of iPrice’s traffic, there’s no plan to produce standalone
mobile apps. That’s because “people are still searching for products on
google [and iPrice] transfers traffic to merchants, many of which don’t
have an app,” Chmelar explained.
iPrice claims to offer 15 million products from over 150
“direct” partners. That’s up from three million products when we spoke
to Wendel when the company raised its first funding back in May. Chmelar
told TechCrunch that he wants to see the current numbers doubled during
the next quarter.
“We’ve been getting great traction and have built a very
solid base and good base number of merchants,” he added. “By mastering
our mobile presence, iPrice can truly become the consumer brand for
online shopping that we envision to be.”
Featured Image: Shutterstock
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