The International Finance Corporation (IFC) is ready to invest up to € 10 million in the Russian online store Lamoda and become another of its co-owners. The project is unprofitable, but this does not frighten investors - this year it was invested by $ 55 million by JP Morgan bank and $ 130 million by a consortium led by Access Industries Leonard Blavatnik, which became the largest transaction in the Russian online trading market.
At the end of last year, another € 10 million (about $ 13 million) was invested in the Russian online store by the French holding Kering (formerly called PPR). Thus, over the past year and a half, Lamoda has raised at least $ 198 million. Prior to this, venture capital market participants such as AB Kinnevik, Holtzbrinck Ventures, Tengelmann Group also supported the project.
According to Dmitry Alimov, managing partner of the Frontier Ventures fund, Lamoda's losses reach tens of millions of dollars. However, in this segment, all companies suffer big losses due to high competition and the cost of attracting new customers. Judging by how aggressive Lamoda is, the expert believes, the company wants to conquer the market more than focus on profit.
The Lamoda online store was launched by the German startup incubator Rocket Internet in 2011. The project unites 500 thousand goods of 720 brands. The monthly audience, according to comScore data as of April 2013, is almost 4,7 million unique users in Russia. Since 2012, the retailer has also been operating in Kazakhstan.
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