Trust in online sellers is needed everywhere. To fill what it calls “the trust gap” for e-commerce companies in emerging markets, a Hong Kong-based startup called TrustedCompany has landed $1 million. The company, which previously raised a seed round of $250,000, says it generates this trust through customer reviews and ratings. The new Series A funding — led by Tengelmann Ventures in Germany with investments from 500 Startups in the U.S. and Malaysia-based Asia Venture Group — will be used to back product innovation, boost marketing and sales in southeast Asia and India, and jumpstart expansion into Africa and Brazil.
TrustedCompany.com, a review platform for e-commerce businesses in emerging markets like Southeast Asia and India, announced today that it has raised a Series A round of $1 million led by Tengelmann Ventures, with participation from 500 Startups and returning investor Asia Venture Group. The company, which launched in November 2013 and is based in Malaysia and Hong Kong, claims to be the first review platform for e-commerce in emerging markets. In the first half of 2014, TrustedCompany.com has grown to 20 employees, and plans to use its Series A financing to continue expanding in Southeast Asia, and enter Africa and Brazil. Since launching, the company says that it has seen month-over-month usage growth of more than 40 percent and now has over 500,00 company profiles on the site that consumers can contribute reviews to. The site’s indirect competitors include forums and platforms such as Mouthshut, Complaintboard, and Facebook groups, says TrustedCompany.com’s co-founder and managing director Frederik Krass. TrustedCompany.com wants to differentiate by localizing for each market that it enters. “The current state of emerging e-commerce holds tremendous opportunities for solutions that tackle scam, fraud, and other types of abuse, and we strongly believe that creating trust through third-party verified reviews do help overcome these issues,” Krass told TechCrunch. “On the other hand, we believe that localizing our service for each market is a must.”
