Deal focus: TheAsianparent plans baby business boom

There is no shortage of information available on how to raise a child – but as any parent can attest, quantity and quality are not the same. Among the plethora of books and websites offering expert advice, many are created by and for Westerners, whose cultural biases leave large blind spots regarding issues that are most important to caregivers from other regions.

“Some of the questions that we get on a regular basis – can I feed durian to a one-year-old, how much should I pay my helper – are things that Asian parents, from Indonesia to Hong Kong and the Philippines, often wonder about,” says Roshni Mahtani, founder and CEO of theAsianparent. “Before we existed there was no authority for them to refer to. They would have to ask their friends or parents, and rely on what everyone else was doing.”

Mahtani launched theAsianparent in 2009 to fill this knowledge gap. Over the last 10 years, the company has expanded from a single parenting blog to encompass a range of content and social networking platforms aimed at helping parents support each other. With a Series C round of more than $10 million led by Fosun RZ Capital, Mahtani hopes to turn the site into a hub for parents in underserved communities around the world.

Key to theAsianparent’s growth is the addition of a new business strategy focused on e-commerce, for which its 23.5 million monthly users form a natural target market. Rather than simply intermediating sales as a marketplace, the company wants to develop its own line of skincare and household products. “After years spent researching various communities in Southeast Asia, we’ve found there are some products mothers want that just aren’t available,” says Mahtani. “We’re coming up with our own lines and working with e-commerce platforms to sell them, as well as selling directly to consumers.” 

Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com, another participant in the Series C round, is expected to play a major role in the expansion, providing guidance on setting up the retail platform in markets where it operates.

Mahtani is also focused on expanding theAsianparent into new regions. The company is already present in six markets in Southeast Asia, along with Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Japan. It is now eying South Asia, with a view to using its existing India base as a platform to reach Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. A similar strategy is planned for Africa: theAsianparent recently launched in Nigeria and will soon enter South Africa and Kenya as well.

“We’re just following the babies, and these markets have some of the highest birth rates in the world. For example, Nigeria has the potential to be the world’s third-largest population by 2050,” Mahtani says. “This is definitely a market we feel we need to focus on, and we’ll grow not just by creating content and communities that are culturally specific, but by entering into markets that really need us as well.”   

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• Topics
• Southeast Asia
• Consumer
• Expansion
• TMT
• Growth capital
• Singapore
• Fosun Group
• JD.com