Ethnic Online Grocer Weee! Nets $315 Million To Fund Expansion

Ethnic online grocery company Weee! has raised $315 million in a Series D round to fund the firm’s expansion across North America, as well as the growth and diversification of its product offerings.

Weee! announced in a press release on Thursday (Mar. 18) that the funding round was led by existing investor DST Global, and also included new investments from Blackstone, Tiger Global and Arena Holdings. The round brings the firm’s total funding raised to date to over $415 million.

Weee! currently offers ethnic ingredients “essential to Asian and Hispanic cuisines” and aims to further engage those communities with personalized features on their eCommerce site, according to the press release.

“Ethnic communities have been overlooked in the online and retail space. We believe the opportunity to provide these fast-growing communities access to exciting and affordable groceries is tremendous,” said Larry Liu, the company’s founder and CEO.

In a recent conversation with PYMNTS, Liu noted that in the past, shoppers have found themselves driving two hours to find an Asian American store that stocks the specialty product they’re looking for. “And the shopping experience at ethnic grocery markets is not ideal,” he added.

The release noted that the grocery market for these and other traditionally underserved ethnic populations is poised to continue to expand as these demographics grow, with the market for ethnic customers predicted to top $464 billion by 2030.

Weee! also uses social shopping to engage customers, a strategy that contributed to its 600 percent year-over-year growth in 2020, PYMNTS reported. “We believe grocery shopping should be a social activity. In the early days of the company, we observed that a lot of people actually buy things together, sometimes to find food on social platforms like WeChat and Facebook,” said Liu.

Weee! currently operates in 14 regions in the U.S. and looks to enter 16 new cities around North America by 2024.