Parenting site TheAsianparent gets funding from Vertex, has raised $3.27M so far

TheAsianparent, an online publication targeting parents and soon-to-be-parents in Asia, announced it has raised a round of funding from Vertex Venture, the venture capital subsidiary of Singapore sovereign wealth fund Temasek. This brings its total funding to S$4.5 million (US$3.27 million).

The website has about six million unique users a month hitting 40 million pageviews. Most of its readers come from Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, and India. Besides theAsianparent, Singapore-headquartered Tickled Media operates other properties like Pregnant.sg, a content site for pregnant mums-to-be, and Kidlander, an event listings site for expat parents.

The funding will be used to expand regionally, but especially into India, which has a large English-language readership, growing internet penetration, and a high birth rate. It already has a localized site for India, called Indusparent, which will offer localized content.

TheAsianparent, founded in 2009, now has over 60 employees (one-third are engineers, data scientists, and product managers), signaling a shift away from media and towards becoming more of a technology company. It makes most of its money from advertising and market research.

It has niche appeal to advertisers, since mothers spend a lot on their kids. It also targets a sweet spot, because pregnancy and motherhood are life-changing events that change a consumer’s behavior, which means they’re looking out for new products and brands.

While its readership is mainly female, it plans to focus more on dads. It will also develop more videos and user-generated content through its Q&A platform. It will launch its iOS and Android apps by the middle of this year to target its rising mobile readership.

Vertex has been actively investing in startups in Southeast Asia. These include GrabTaxi, a leading Southeast Asian taxi app, Paktor, a Tinder-like dating app headquartered in Singapore, and biotech firm Clearbridge BioMedics.