New CEO speaks

• 500-backed online shopping aggregator iPrice appointed Paul Brown-Kenyon as its new CEO last month. Brown-Kenyon is no stranger to the group, having served before as president and COO.
• With the rapid growth of e-commerce across Southeast Asia due to the coronavirus pandemic, iPrice is the go-to for price comparisons. The platform also creates e-commerce insights, often revealing consumer habits on specific products or ongoing trends.

• Speaking to KrAsia, Brown-Kenyon tells how he plans on steering the company to continue riding the new reality of online shopping and deploying the Series B funds raised in March.
• “The additional funding will allow us to invest further in our Google presence, which we believe will remain a key starting point for many online shoppers,” says Brown-Kenyon.
• Collectively, iPrice witnessed a 60% increase on all its sites in the last two months. This is a testament of the e-commerce surge offset by lockdown measures in the region.
• You can read the full interview here

Part and parcel of a great shopping experience

• As indicated in the name, 500-backed Parcel Perform is helping parcels perform better. Or in other words, providing data to help brands analyze their logistics chain so orders can be delivered timely and efficiently.
• With over 600 carriers around the world on its platform, Parcel Perform counts big brands like Nespresso and Decathlon as clients.

• “We want to ensure e-commerce businesses create an environment where their customers have a fantastic shopping experience and become lifelong customers,” Dr. Arne Jeroschewski, Parcel Perform Founder & CEO tells Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) in an interview feature.
• Parcel Perform does this with functionalities including the creation of fully-branded tracking pages and a comprehensive customer service toolkit. It also offers personalized updates in over 30 languages.
• With the pandemic crisis altering shopping habits and pushing traditional brick-and-mortars to go online, the Singapore-based company has prepared a series of initiatives to welcome this change, including leveraging machine learning to predict delivery trends.

Sustainability is key

• Vikas Garg started 500-backed abillionveg to be the go-to, community-driven review platform that helps people across the world find and share insights on plant-based menu items, packaged foods and cruelty-free consumer products.
• Having left a lucrative hedge fund career and moved from California, Vikas and his team are based in Singapore operating a mobile app where people from over 120 countries source, review, and recommend sustainable options from food to fashion.

• Besides, abillionveg pledges that for every review, it will donate to a non-profit. According to the Singapore Global Network, the business donated more than S$100,000 to partners around the world in 2019. It aims to continue supporting these initiatives with more than S$1.4 million in donations in 2020 thus far.
• “Trust is a big factor in the vegan and sustainability community. We spend a lot of time building bridges between abillionveg and organisations that are highly respected in our space around the world,” Vikas says.
• True to its name, abillionveg aims to inspire a billion people to go vegan by 2030.

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500 Startups is a venture capital firm on a mission to discover and back the world’s most talented entrepreneurs, help them create successful companies at scale, and build thriving global ecosystems. In Southeast Asia, 500 Startups invests through the pioneering 500 Southeast Asia family of funds. The 500 Southeast Asia funds have backed over 240 companies across multiple sectors from internet to consumer to deep technology. It continues to connect founders with capital, expertise and powerful regional and global networks to help them succeed.

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