Naver’s direct investment comes only three months after iPrice raised an undisclosed in Series B round led by LINE Ventures
Naver Corp, South Korea’s leading search engine and parent company of mobile messenger app LINE, has invested an undisclosed sum in iPrice Group, which operates product discovery and comparison sites across Southeast Asia.
Naver’s direct investment comes only three months after Kuala Lumpur-headquartered iPrice Group raised an undisclosed in Series B round led by LINE Ventures, the corporate venture arm of Japan’s LINE Corporation.
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Commenting on the new investment, iPrice Group’s CEO and Co-founder David Chmelar, said: “Naver doesn’t only operate the leading search engine in South Korea but has been also able to build an impressive shopping and price comparison engine in its domestic market.”
Founded in October 2014, iPrice operates in seven markets – Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, and Hong Kong. Over the past 15 months, iPrice secured strategic business-to-business partnerships with some of the biggest media groups and brands in the region, including Mediacorp in Singapore, Thairath in Thailand, and Samsung in Indonesia.
Since its Series B funding, iPrice claims to have grown the number of monthly users to a further 50 per cent, mainly driven by its Indonesian market.
Previously, in December 2016, iPrice secured a US$4 million Series A funding led by Asia Venture Group and Venturra Capital. Prior to this, it has raised two round of funding — US$1.2 million in 2015 and a US$550,000 seed investment.
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