Malaysian online fashion retailer FashionValet has received an undisclosed amount of Series C funding from Khazanah Nasional Berhad, the strategic investment arm of the Malaysian government.
FashionValet, which began in 2010, initially offered 10 brands. It now offers over 300 brands from Southeast Asia. The company has offices in Malaysia and Singapore, in addition to two brick-and-mortar stores in Kuala Lumpur.
FashionValet said in an announcement today that the brand new investment will help it grow its presence in Malaysia by opening more physical stores, expanding into other markets and enhancing its infrastructure through technology.
The company in January announced plans to expand into West Asia and is now considering the Middle East.
“Going forward, we will no longer have one site for all countries. We will have separate sites for different regions,” FashionValet co-founder Vivy Yusof told Salaam Gateway.
“The Middle East is an attraction for us. We have already got customers here organically – we haven’t done any marketing here – so having that already shows a extremely good response.
Malaysia currently accounts for about 60 percent of FashionValet’s customer base. In the Middle East, the shop’s largest markets are Kuwait, Qatar, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, Yusof said.
“We plan to create a FashionValet Middle East website that will meet the local needs of the region,” she said.
There is not any set timeline for the corporate to enter the Middle East market, said Vivy, who was in Dubai on March 27, where she met with buyers and customers to get their feedback on FashionValet’s current brands.
Commenting on its plans to expand into recent markets, Yusof said the corporate had learned lessons from its failure to establish operations in Jakarta three years ago.
“We learned lots in Jakarta, but looking back, I don’t think we had the suitable strategy, didn’t spend enough time there, or found the suitable method to go into that market. We weren’t ready. We weren’t sure the right way to manage so many various offices in so many various countries.
“I’ve also learned not to leap in too quickly. That’s why I need to watch out when I’m going into the Middle East.
“We want to find the right mentor and the right partner and let them take us further,” Yusof said.
Yusof said FashionValet has not reached profitability but hopes to interrupt even this yr. She said revenue has increased by one hundred pc every year, although she didn’t disclose exact numbers.
Ramadan and Eid are the corporate’s biggest seasons; Yusof said the e-commerce site can receive as much as 7,000 orders a day within the run-up to the vacations, while the remaining of the yr sees a mean of 1,000-1,500 orders a day.
Yusof said that key to FashionValet’s growth was its give attention to local brands.
The company will adopt the identical strategy within the Middle East and give attention to what local designers and types need most. According to Viva, local designers within the region see manufacturing as their primary focus, and FashionValet intends to leverage its Asian experience and networks to achieve the Middle East.
“We go to China on a regular basis, we all know where to look, where to get good prices and so forth. So [local designers in the Middle East] they’re very interested, especially within the experience we have now and the contacts we are able to offer them.
“And secondly, because of the influence we have in other regions, the moment they come to FashionValet, they can also enter the Southeast Asian market, where we are already.”
FashionValet’s first funding got here in 2012, when it beat out 40 others to win 1 million Malaysian ringgit ($300,000) from MyEG Services on local reality show Make The Pitch. Yusof and FashionValet co-founder and CEO Fadzarudin Anuar secured $1.5 million from Silicon Valley-based Elixir Capital and $5 million from Start Today Ltd, owner of leading Japanese online shopping center Zozotown.
