South Korea-based online beauty product retailer B2Link has raised $15m in funding from investors including cosmetics manufacturer Kolmar Korea and Posco Capital, a corporate venturing subsidiary of steel producer Posco.
Financial services firm Korea Development Bank and brokerage Cape Investment & Securities also participated in the round, as did Premier Partners, Delta Investment and Angel Ventures Pacific Alliance Fund II, a fund managed by venture capital firm Angel Ventures.
B2link operates an online platform that uses artificial intelligence and big data technology to assist beauty brands in distributing their products to retail partners in the US, China and Southeast Asia.
E-commerce companies can also use the platform to manage business processes such as sourcing, product and inventory management, invoicing and delivery.
Lee So-Hyung, B2Link’s CEO, said: “The growth momentum of Korean beauty brands is stagnating in China, so the number of cosmetics partners seeking breakthroughs by collaborating with the data and IT-based distribution service of B2Link keeps increasing. It will become a new standard for cosmetics distribution in the future.”
The company had received $4.3m from financial services firms Industrial Bank of Korea and SK Securities in 2016, according to Be Success, the year after KTB Network had invested $2.5m in the company and DT Capital an undisclosed amount.
DSC Investment had previously made two investments in B2Link totalling $1m, in 2014 and early 2015.