WEBUY acquires Indonesian group buy platform Chilibeli

WEBUY, a social ecommerce startup based in Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia, has acquired Chilibeli, Indonesia’s largest community group buying platform, for an undisclosed amount.

Chilibeli, like WEBUY, uses a social group buy model that optimizes the supply chain for cost savings to buyers and generates income for group leaders.

The company’s strong global supply chain will create synergies for the grocery group buy market in Indonesia. In addition, developed features like the In-App Chat and Short Video features will be implemented to enable Chilibeli’s 10,000 group leaders to leverage technology to do more community sales and increase order density, according to an announcement.

Chilibeli was founded in 2019, and raised $10 million in a Series A funding led by Lightspeed Venture Partners in early 2020. Investors include Golden Gate Ventures, Sequoia’s Surge accelerator programme, Kinesys Group, Addition Ventures and Alto Partners, amongst others.

“We are excited about the opportunities given from this strategic acquisition. This could not have come at a better time, as we were in the midst of expanding our business in Indonesia. Chilibeli’s current resources of group leaders, warehousing and staff are synergistic to our business, allowing us to serve APP with a stronger presence and benefit more people. With our strength in the global supply chain, technology and product features, we will become the leading social e-commerce startup in Southeast Asia,” said WEBUY CEO Vincent Xue.

First launched in Singapore in August 2019, WEBUY is a social e-commerce platform focusing on group buys that seeks to bring back the Kampung spirit of sharing and caring through group buying to the e-commerce environment in Singapore. Currently, WEBUY supports 3,000 group leaders and 100,000 consumers across Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia.

WEBUY aims to give both merchants and consumers an opportunity to source and provide novel food and beverage (F&B) items while helping small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) across Asia expand their business opportunities.