Online Grocer Weee Raises $425M

Online grocer Weee has raised $425 million in late-stage funding amid ongoing demand for food and grocery delivery, according to a Monday (Feb. 28) press release.

The funding round — led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 — brings the startup’s total capital raised to $800 million. The company said it plans to use the new funding to invest in warehouse automation, expand its base of customers and move its grocery and food delivery offerings into new regions.

“We’ve seen tremendous growth in 2021, even through the easing of COVID-19-related pressures, as our customers continue to discover affordable access to a wide array of exciting products and food online,” said Weee Founder and CEO Larry Liu in the release.

This funding round comes almost a year after Weee’s Series D, which raised $315 million. The company, which was founded seven years ago, bills itself as the largest Asian and Hispanic grocery provider in the country, according to the report.

Read more: Ethnic Online Grocer Weee Nets $315M to Fund Expansion

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

Speaking to PYMNTS in 2020, Liu noted that in the past, consumes have found themselves driving two hours to find an Asian American store that carriers the specialty product they’re looking for.

“And the shopping experience at ethnic grocery markets is not ideal,” he added.

Weee said the grocery market for these and other traditionally underserved ethnic populations is poised to grow along with these demographics, with the market for ethnic customers predicted to exceed $464 billion by the end of the decade.

Weee also uses social shopping to engage its customers, a method that contributed to its 600% year-over-year growth in 2020.

“We believe grocery shopping should be a social activity,” Liu said in 2020. “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.”