Korea’s Alwayz Aims To Make Online “Shopping Fun Again” With $46M In Funding

Levit, a Seoul-based e-commerce company behind the shopping app Alwayz, has raised $46 million in a Series B funding round led by DST Global Partners. The round also saw participation from new investor BOND and existing backers KB Investment, Mirae Asset Capital, Korea Investment Partners, GS Ventures, and Klim Ventures. With this latest funding, Levit has accumulated a total of $67 million since its establishment two years ago.

Alwayz distinguishes itself from typical e-commerce platforms by incorporating social features and gamification elements to make the shopping experience more entertaining and affordable. The platform offers a wide range of products, from daily groceries to home appliances, apparel, and cosmetics. Users can engage in activities like playing games with the pig character Don-Don-E to earn rewards or cultivate crops in a game called AI-Farm, which translates into real-life crops. Additionally, Alwayz recently introduced a “Shorts” feature where users can watch short videos and receive shopping discounts in return.

Apart from its interactive features, Alwayz attracts customers with its low-price products. The platform employs a consumer-to-manufacturer (C2M) model, eliminating intermediaries like logistics and inventory to offer high-quality products at lower prices. Most sellers on Alwayz are producers or manufacturers. Levit claims that its average product selling price is approximately 20% cheaper than the lowest prices on other e-commerce platforms. Lesser-known brands that previously spent a significant portion of their selling price on marketing can now efficiently sell their products on Alwayz through discovery-based shopping.

Levit’s CEO and co-founder, Jaeyun Kang, highlighted that the engaging experience on Alwayz encourages users to enter the app regularly and exposes them to various products, even if they initially have no intention to buy. Through recommendation algorithms, Alwayz leverages user engagement to introduce a range of items to customers, enabling them to discover and purchase products, even from lesser-known brands. This unique user experience is described as a “discovery shopping experience.”

To ensure the quality of low-priced products, Alwayz utilizes recommendation algorithms that assess all items on the platform based on factors such as conversion rates and customer repurchase rates. Items are not widely exposed until they have proven their quality, allowing Alwayz to maintain the standards of its offerings.

Since its launch in September 2021, Alwayz has rapidly gained traction, accumulating 1 million users within three months. Currently, it boasts 7 million users, with 2.5 million monthly active users (MAUs) and 1.3 million daily active users (DAUs) within one and a half years. Levit aims to surpass 12 million registered users, 5 million MAUs, and 3 million DAUs by the end of 2023. The platform currently has nearly 20,000 registered sellers.

The founders of Levit, Jaeyun Kang, Sangwoo Park, and Hyunjik Lee, have ambitious goals of establishing Levit as the leading e-commerce company in South Korea and capturing a significant share of the global discovery shopping market. While Alwayz faces competition from local peers like Coupang, Naver, and Kurly, its business model aligns more closely with U.S.-listed e-commerce platform Pinduoduo and China-based AliExpress in terms of social features and lower-priced products.

With a team of 20 people, Levit plans to expand its platform to the U.S. market as early as this year. The company’s relentless focus on user experience, engagement, and value has impressed investors, with Daegwon Chae, general partner of BOND, stating that disrupting the mature and efficient e-commerce market requires offering better, faster, and cheaper experiences, which Alwayz has managed to achieve.