World wide, the vegan motion has been rising in reputation. Extra folks than ever earlier than are selecting to ditch animal merchandise in favour of plant-based alternate options.
In accordance with vegan enterprise journal Vegconomist, Singapore is shortly changing into a “haven for vegans”, and was named the second most vegan-friendly Asian metropolis by PETA Asia.
Regardless of that, on the lookout for vegetarian or vegan meals choices in Singapore can nonetheless be a tiresome affair. Though vegan-friendly choices in Singapore are steadily increasing, shoppers would possibly nonetheless have a troublesome time sussing out these eating institutions.
Vikas Garg, founder and CEO of abillion, understood these challenges. The entrepreneur grew up in a vegetarian family, and regardless of residing in New York Metropolis, the choices have been restricted.
“I principally plenty of dairy, pizza, issues like that. It was all the time a problem when going to eating places and having to ask questions in regards to the meals. It turned much more difficult after I turned vegan,” stated Vikas.
He had made the choice to embark on a vegan weight-reduction plan after having realised that among the promoting surrounding the well being advantages of incorporating dairy into one’s weight-reduction plan was maybe not as truthful as he had thought.
Moreover, that was additionally across the time when he acquired his canine, and the emotional connection he made along with his pet acquired him pondering extra deeply in regards to the affect of how changing into vegan is likely to be extra helpful for the surroundings.
The eventual resolution to launch abillion therefore felt like a pure one, as he wished to create a platform that may assist folks make a simple and pure transition to creating extra sustainable meals decisions.
Reviewing vegan dishes from all around the world
Beforehand abillionveg, abillion is a user-led platform that encourages folks to share opinions of vegan dishes or merchandise, with the final word purpose of utilizing user-generated content material to create an ecosystem for the plant-based motion.
Vikas made the choice to resign from his company function in January 2017, and launched abillionveg a couple of months later. He enrolled in a coding bootcamp previous to that, as he felt it will be helpful to know the fundamentals of how the platform would work.
He then headhunted two of the perfect college students in the identical bootcamp, and the three of them set about creating the preliminary web site, which was launched in November 2017.
Past a platform to share vegan meals and restaurant opinions, abillion has grown to turn out to be an ecosystem of over 350,000 customers from over 140 nations.
The group modified its model from abillionveg to abillion in an effort to cater to its rising neighborhood.
As we speak, 65 per cent of its members are omnivores and flexiatrians, and the group is seeing larger range in its viewers. The widespread denominator although, is their curiosity in sustainability.
“We’ve realised that we aren’t simply servicing a vegan neighborhood however a world neighborhood of acutely aware shoppers and we’re quickly evolving to raised serve them,” stated Vikas.
The group is making a neighborhood of holistic acutely aware shoppers who try to be sustainable in all features of their lives, be it in magnificence, health, retail and normal residing.
Since 2018, abillion has raised US$7 million in funding. Of the US$7 million, US$2 million was raised in its seed spherical, which broke data as the biggest seed spherical for a plant-based start-up that yr in Singapore.
The startup is presently going by its Sequence A funding with the intention to boost US$10 to US $15 million by the tip of July.
Turning social media into social good
For each evaluate posted, abillion credit its members $1 that they will donate to shut to 70 of the world’s most impactful organisations that lead conservation, training and weight-reduction plan change efforts.
In accordance with Vikas, this helps customers make a connection between their life-style decisions and the affect they’ve on the world.
It has additionally helped the group to construct its core base of devoted abillion members, in addition to naturally scale the quantity it donates based mostly on this progress.
To this point, the platform has seen over 700,000 meals opinions and 100,000 model opinions, with over US$500,000 donated to good causes.
Other than meals, customers also can discover vegan merchandise comparable to hair and pores and skin merchandise, all of which permit for different vegan lovers to depart opinions. This allows abillion customers to carry out a extra refined search.
Vikas instructed Vulcan Publish that abillion has the world’s “Most worthy and distinctive client information set for sustainability,” that comes from its 700,000 opinions.
The startup can then leverage this proprietary dataset to assist buyers, producers, distributors, and retailers establish market gaps and progress alternatives within the socially accountable consumption wave.
Additionally it is the primary firm to launch awards for plant-based merchandise and dishes based mostly on actual client information and preferences.
“We’re not telling the general public that one thing is primary based mostly on the opinions of a small panel of celeb judges; we’re awarding somebody a primary place award based mostly on 1000’s of information factors based mostly on actual member suggestions,” stated Vikas.
The vegan market is huge, and it’s rising shortly
In accordance with Vikas, the yr 2020 noticed a “seismic shift within the acutely aware mindset of Singaporean shoppers” which was proven with the two.5x enhance in customers of the app in Singapore. Over 4,000 opinions of vegan dishes have been posted from the Singaporean panorama alone within the app.
Because the economic system in Singapore started to reel again from the pandemic, and customers have been allowed to go to extra eating places abillion noticed a rising curiosity in plant-based dishes and alternate options among the many Singaporean crowd.
With plant-based meat alternate options like Tindle, Karana and Unimaginable Meals changing into more and more common, Singapore is seeing an rising vegan market and the curiosity in plant-based vitamin and weight-reduction plan is continuous to develop.
Final yr, abillion launched its High 20 Vegan Cities report, and Singapore was indicated as second within the world vegan metropolis rating. Additionally it is one of many app’s prime 4 key markets.
Folks all around the world are adopting plant-based diets and there may be heightened consciousness of the environmental and private advantages of a plant-based life-style. I additionally suppose the pandemic has been a wake-up name in that facet—folks started to see the need and the positivity behind making acutely aware choices. Platforms like abillion have been instrumental on this new wave and we’re proud to be a part of this progress to make sure a extra sustainable tomorrow for all beings.
Vikas Garg, founder and CEO of abillion
At present, abillion members can solely publish opinions of plant-based dishes and sustainable merchandise. Nonetheless, by the tip of the quarter, abillion plans to provide members the power to publish something they need.
This consists of the chance to debate something that’s sustainable, share their ideas, photographs, movies, recipes, even hyperlinks to articles.
These extra normal posts are aimed toward beginning conversations about sustainability and bringing the neighborhood nearer collectively.
Since abillion is a world neighborhood that catalyses folks and companies to do what’s proper for the planet, Vikas desires to be the world’s largest social media platform for sustainability.
To assist us obtain this, one in every of its key priorities is to proceed to turn out to be a toolkit for the subsequent era of entrepreneurs and enterprise homeowners, who prioritise plant-based choices.
With this in thoughts, will probably be launching a Enterprise Dashboard within the coming months. This dashboard will assist enterprise homeowners to have interaction with the rising acutely aware client base.
abillion will even be launching a market that may allow shoppers to purchase and types to promote merchandise immediately from our platform.
“We hope these options will allow members to work together with one another and encourage them to be guiding forces in one another’s sustainable journeys. Our final purpose with abillion is to information folks in making social affect and sustainability a behavior for everybody,” stated Vikas.
Featured Picture Credit score: abillion
