We’re excited to announce our investment in Pepper.ph, the leading online community for food culture in the Philippines and now also the leading local e-commerce site for cooking and kitchen products.

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As the internet economy continues to expand rapidly in the Philippines, we are seeing increasing opportunities for specialist “vertical-specific” e-commerce businesses. Whereas five years ago, almost all local e-commerce sales were concentrated on Lazada and Shopee, today, even as Lazada and Shopee continue to grow, we see rapidly expanding vertical specialists like Edamama for mother & baby products, Flowerstore for flowers & gifting, and Beautymnl for beauty products.

Pepper.ph is well-positioned to be the number one online destination for culinary products in the Philippines with a dedicated focus providing a deep assortment of knives, pots, pans, cookbooks, kitchen equipment and much else with insightful informational content and a user experience optimized for the category.

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In addition to long-term growth trends for e-commerce consumer spending as incomes grow in emerging markets like the Philippines, we see a particularly good opportunity in the cooking category as covid lockdowns introduced many people to home-cooking as a creative hobby and form of entertainment that we think will continue even as covid restrictions (hopefully) end.

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Pepper’s founder Dwight Co has already demonstrated an impressive entrepreneurial track record and a deep knowledge and passion for the category. He is the founder of the successful multi-brand food concepts business LowBrow (operator of popular brands like Fowlbread). With Pepper.ph, Dwight and his COO Meya Cortez have built the leading online community for cooking culture in the country with over 130,000 followers on Pepper’s Instagram account. Pepper.ph produces unique high-quality content like cooking tips for popular local dishes, entertaining kitchen appliance product reviews, and “recipe hack” videos for homemade versions of bestselling items from popular local restaurants (like a DIY recipe for Nihonbashitei’s popular spicy tuna sashimi).

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Pepper plans to continue the community & content part of the business, which has its own interesting revenue opportunities, in addition to ramping up their e-commerce operations. We see strong synergies with their unique content strengthening the Pepper brand and bringing customers to the e-commerce store. For many aspiring casual chefs, trying to understand the nuances and pros and cons of different kitchen appliances and products can be a big deterrent. Pepper’s informative content, smooth design and well-stocked assortment makes high-quality cooking more accessible for both amateur chefs and professional kitchens. We think Pepper.ph is well-positioned to unlock a big untapped consumer category in the Philippines and we’re excited to support Dwight and his team on this mission.

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If you’re looking to up your home cooking game, check out Pepper.ph!