Rocket’s Asian Success Story Zalora in Mammoth $100m Round

By David Knight |

Zalora, a Rocket Internet e-commerce company in South-East Asia, has secured a mammoth $100 million (€77.3m) in funding through its German holding firm – one of the largest such investments in an emerging market. The money has come from Summit Partners, Investment AB Kinnevik, Verlinvest and German retail Group Tengelmann, the last of which also invested €20 million into the company less than three months ago.

Zalora claims to be the region’s fastest-growing online store for fashion and beauty and has been dubbed the ‘Asian Zalando‘. It recently delivered its one millionth order in just over a year following its 2012 launch. Zalora is active in nine countries – including Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand – and aims at broadening the access to its products beyond the traditional markets in capital and other major cities.

Michele Ferrario, managing director at Zalora, said: “Our company is one of the fastest growing e-commerce companies in South-East Asia and has bright prospects. It is an honor for us that investors of such great repute have invested into an e-commerce company as young as Zalora.”

The new money will be spent on helping the company to scale its operations more quickly to reach more of the 600 million potential customers in the region. This includes upping the number of local and international brands available – currently at around 500 – and an increased focus on mobile, with some 25 percent of revenue originating in orders from mobile phones and tablets.

The funding follows the trend of the previous MO of Berlin-based incubator Rocket Internet in aggressive growth in emerging markets. This includes investments made into Lazada, also in South-East Asia, Jumia in Africa and Linio in South America.