HomeFundingSwedish fashion e-commerce startup NA-KD secures $45 million funding for the global...

Swedish fashion e-commerce startup NA-KD secures $45 million funding for the global expansion

After securing €14 million in funding in January 2017, the Swedish fashion e-commerce startup NA-KD has grown more than 150% in 2017. The new Series B round totalling $45 million is led by Partech with the participation of NA-KD’s existing investors Northzone, eEquity, Jonas Norlander and Filip Engelbert (Avito founders) and US-based FJ Labs.

NA-KD is a global online direct-to-consumer (DTC) brand for women, founded in 2015 by serial entrepreneur Jarno Vanhatapio. NA-KD provides trendy millennials with stylish yet affordable clothes, mainly marketed through social influencers. After just two years, NA-KD is already among the most quoted global online fashion brands on Instagram but mainly in Sweden and Germany, with a highly scalable fashion collaboration platform with star influencers. At the end of NA-KD’s second full year of operations, the company had a revenue run-rate of close to $75 million.

The new funding round is led by Partech, a leading global tech investment firm with several e-commerce successes like UK-based Made.com or France-based ManoMano in its portfolio.

NA-KD.com will use the new $40 million primary funding to accelerate the exponential growth of the company and reinforce its leadership as the preferred fashion brand for millennials, with the launch of 9 new localised sites in the coming months, the continuous hiring of world class talent, and the strong development of collection collaborations with leading worldwide social influencers.

NA-KD Founder and CEO Jarno Vanhatapio stated: “We have had great interest from the investment community and we were in the fortunate position to be able to choose who to partner up with. I am happy to welcome Partech into the NA-KD team. Partech really impressed us with their high ambitions, deep domain knowledge, extensive omnichannel expertise among the partners and their impressive investment portfolio.”

Bruno Crémel, General Partner at Partech says: “At Partech, we are big believers in digital native Direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands. That thesis led us to invest in 2015 in Made.com, now the clear pan-European leading brand in contemporary online furniture. Since then, we have been on the lookout for the best DTC brands in Europe.”

Today, NA-KD has customers in over 170 countries. The new capital injection is growth capital and will primarily be used to improve the customer proposition and experience, offer a broader inventory and intensified international marketing activities. The Göteborg-based company already employs 138 people and with the Series B investment, NA-KD will look to further strengthen all departments with high performing talents.

Jarno Vanhatapio added: “In Q1 2017 we moved our main distribution centre to the Netherlands and in Q4 2017 we launched our new website and IT platform. Executing two massive projects in the same year and delivering growth of 153% YoY proves that we have a stellar team at NA-KD. We will continue to invest in growth during 2018, especially targeting the US, UK and major European markets with nine localised and translated sites and with localised marketing. Although we significantly improved the bottom-line results during 2017, international growth is still number one, two and three on our priority list for 2018. Our bottom-line results are moving towards profitability exactly as planned. More than 80% of sales are coming from private label brands with strong gross margins. This development has given us some profitable markets already in our second year, and all in all the company is profitable post-marketing cost.”

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Thomas Ohr
Thomas Ohr
Thomas Ohr is the "Editor in Chief" of EU-Startups.com and started the blog in October 2010. He is excited about Europe's future, passionate about new business ideas and lives in Barcelona (Spain).
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