Internet group Tencent led a $50m series B round for China-based fashion marketplace ChicV on Friday, investing alongside Focustar Capital, a vehicle for diversified conglomerate Fivestar Holdings.
Founded in 2014, ChicV has built a cross-border e-commerce platform that sells women’s clothing items, accessories, footwear and bags, focusing on the European and North American markets. It also runs subportals under the StyleWe, JustFashionNow and Noracora brands.
The company will use the funding to further develop its technology, improve its logistics services and ramp up its marketing capabilities. It also intends to expand its activities to emerging markets such as Latin America and the Middle East.
Tencent said in a statement that with the digital upgrading of international commerce, foreign market-focused retail has become one of the major trends in China. It intends to provide long-term support to digital transformation of the industry and help accelerate industrial innovation.
ChicV had received an undisclosed amount of series A funding from investment and asset management firm Beam Capital in 2017, the year after a $2.3m angel round featuring Lenovo Capital, an investment arm of consumer electronics producer Lenovo, and Grit Ventures, according to financial data aggregator Tianyancha.
