Asian grocery shopping made easy
Our investment in Weee!
Grocery shopping can be a hassle, and this inconvenience has led to the popularity of online grocery delivery services such as Instacart. Though certainly useful, these services cater to the general population while there are consumer segments who feel that their grocery shopping needs are being underserved.
The Asian population is growing at a ~3% CAGR in the US. For customers who purchase Asian groceries, the shopping experience has become a time-consuming weekly task with many pain points such as low product quality, lack of variety, and inconvenient access. Because Asian grocery items are unique and not found at traditional stores or on Amazon, consumers have to go to brick-and-mortar stores, which are typically concentrated in only a few select locations. Due to limited real estate, it is difficult and expensive for these stores to expand their presence. The inconvenience is worsened as Asians are living in broader geographies with no traditional Asian supermarkets nearby.
Enter Weee! (www.sayweee.com/en). Weee! is combining technology with a strong operational foundation to improve the customer experience in regards to Asian groceries and is also our most recent investment.
Based in the Bay Area and with additional coverage in Seattle and Sacramento, Weee! is an e-commerce startup that sells and delivers fresh Asian groceries directly to consumers in a convenient and reliable way. Customers have instant access to a wide spectrum of products such as staple foods (i.e., vegetables, fruits, seafood, meats), snacks, and ready-to-heat meals from popular Asian restaurants. Weee! understands the Asian consumers’ tastes and trends and utilizes this knowledge to find the best products available. Compared to traditional supermarkets, Weee! offers more selection and higher quality items at similar prices while providing daily deliveries for most zip codes in the Bay Area and free deliveries for orders over $35. Given the daily long commuting hours and traffic congestions experienced by Bay Area residents, Weee!’s ease of use and reliability saves customers a significant amount of time.
Weee! is led by a team of serial entrepreneurs with backgrounds in e-commerce, online marketing, and operations. We have known Larry Liu, Weee!’s cofounder/CEO since the company’s inception and have closely followed the company’s progress. We were very impressed with not only its growth but also the team’s operational expertise, ability to recruit key team members, and their willingness to constantly learn and adapt in a competitive industry.
iFly led Weee!’s most recent round, and we have been working very closely with Larry to strategize and scale. We are very excited to start a shared journey with Weee! and look forward to working with the team down the road.
You can order from Weee! from its website, on its iOS and Android app, and on WeChat.
