Left to right: Sociolla Co-Founders John Marco Rasjid, Chrisanti Indiana, Christopher Madiam
Indonesian beauty e-commerce and social platform Sociolla today announced that it has raised a US$12 million funding round led by venture capital (VC) firm East Ventures’ late-stage new fund EV Growth.
Indonesian VC Sinar Mas Digital Ventures and Yahoo! Japan’s corporate VC arm YJ Capital also participated in the funding round, as well as Japanese beauty e-commerce giant istyle and an undisclosed “major” institutional investor from Singapore.
Starting off as an online mall for beauty products, after three years since its launch Sociolla began to introduce its Beauty Journal feature. The feature enables customers to review products and watch or read content related to beauty and lifestyle.
In a press statement, Sociolla explained that they plan to use the new funding partially to acquire tech talents for its new platform SOCO, which aims to integrate Beauty Journal and the platform’s e-commerce features.
“SOCO is short for Sociolla Connect and is a social platform that complements Sociolla’s mission to help shape the future of beauty industry through technology. We believe that the presence of SOCO will complete the two beauty platforms that are already exist by connecting the three focusing pillars of Sociolla which are Content, Commerce, and Community and create a sustainable and integrated beauty ecosystem in this digital era,” explained Sociolla co-founder Chrisanti Indiana.
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Sociolla also plan to use the new funding to support marketing of beauty brands distriuted through its platform; the company currently has more than 150 brands available on their website and has signed distribution agreement with seven beauty brands from Asia and Australia.
Founded in 2015, the startup raised its Series A funding round from Venturra Capital in November 2015 and its Series B funding round in January 2017 in partnership with istyle.
The company said that its partnership with istyle has enabled it to access 14 million beauty products reviews from cosme and MakeupAlley, which had been acquired by istyle.
East Ventures had also invested in Sociolla during its seed funding round.
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Image Credit: Sociolla
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