TrustedCompany secures US$1mil Series A funding

• Investment from Tengelmann Ventures, 500 Startups and Asia Venture Group
• Funds for continued growth in SEA and India, expansion into Africa, Brazil

KUALA Lumpur-based TrustedCompany.com said it has secured US$1 million for its Series A financing round, led by German-based Tengelmann Ventures and co-invested by 500 Startups and Asia Venture Group (AVG).
 
The company, which said it aims to bridge the ‘trust gap’ between online companies and consumers, will used the funds for continued growth in South-East Asia and India, and to expand into Africa and Brazil.
 
The Series A funding comes 10 months after the initial seed investment from AVG, TrustedCompany said in a statement.
 
Over the first half of the year, TrustedCompany has grown to 20 employees located in Hong Kong and Malaysia.
 
It will use the financing to also “accelerate product innovation, grow sales and marketing resources across the region and start into Africa and Brazil,” said its cofounder and managing director Frederik Kraß (pic).
 
His fellow cofounder Philip Knuth said, “We want to increase the transparency in the market and help consumers differentiate between the good merchants and the bad merchants.
 
“This also helps good merchant to differentiate themselves and is a powerful word-of-mouth marketing tool, increasing revenues for online businesses,” he claimed.
 
TrustedCompany claimed it is seeing “great traction in terms of usage and sales” with clients such as Lenskart in India, iMoney.my and myiMart in Malaysia, Pricearea in Indonesia, and others.
 
“Amazon, Trip Advisor, Agoda, eBay, Yelp – some of the most prevalent Internet companies of our time were built on providing reviews to online shoppers,” said 500 Startups’ Khailee Ng.
 
“TrustedCompany does this for the rest of the Internet. There's nothing more exciting than seeing a team this capable go after a market opportunity this huge,” he added.
 
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