Cambodian version of New York social news and entertainment portal Buzzfeed, Khmerload has raised a US$200K investment from 500 Startups, a global venture capital seed fund and startup accelerator founded by PayPal and Google alumni, Dave McClure and Christine Tsai.
This latest investment puts Khmerload as the country’s first local tech startup to attract the backing of Silicon Valley investors which brings the valuation of the site to exceed US$1 million, according to its founder and CEO In Vichet.
Khailee Ng, the managing partner of 500 Startups Southeast Asia said that it is Khmerload’s top media position behind Facebook and Google’s properties, as well as its ability to scale its market share and profitability on a lean budget which makes it such an attractive investment.
“We showed them that we are among the top three websites in Cambodia,” said Vichet, who is also the founder of the Little Fashion e-commerce site. “We also have traction in Myanmar, where we recently expanded. So they see that we have done a lot while already generating revenue. They saw our potential.”
Launched five years ago, Khmerload initially grew its traffic on the basis of viral content, having relied heavily on tabloid and entertainment content which has helped grew its reach in Cambodia. The site also expanded to deliver informative content as well, including educational material and tech news.
Khmerload has a sister site called Myanmarload which has over three million Facebook followers, in addition to conducting a successful pilot in Indonesia known as Indonesiaload.
At present, Khmerload is incorporated in Singapore as Mediaload and is able to generate 17 million page views per month with over two million followers on Facebook.
According to Vichet, it will diversify its content offerings, including general knowledge, technology news, and language resources. The company will also use the latest proceeds to facilitate and accelerate its expansion into its two neighboring markets – Vietnam and Laos.
By Vivian Foo, VCNewsNetwork
