Fab, a US-based consumer products sales site, has extended its series C round by $15m with Russia-based investors joining the syndicate.
VTB Capital, the venture investment unit of Russian bank VTB, and Phenomen Ventures, a venture firm founded by Dmitry Falkovich, an early investor in internet services provider Mail.ru, provided the $15m, according to news provider TechCrunch.
In July, Fab raised $105m in its series C round from a consortium including overseas corporations’ corporate venturing units.
Russia-based internet company Ru-Net’s ru-Net Technology Partners for US investments and Japan-based phone operator NTT’s DoCoMo Capital corporate venturing unit, were joined by venture capital firms Atomico, which led the C round, Pinnacle Ventures, Mayfield Fund, Andreessen Horowitz, Menlo Ventures, Baroda Ventures and First Round Capital and and angel investor Troy Carter, founder of Coalition Media Group, which manages musician Lady Gaga.
In December, Fab.com raised $40m in its B round, following $11m in prior funding including from media firm Washington Post Company, VC firm Zelkova Ventures, microfund SV Angel and a host of angels including Allen Morgan, David Tisch, Jeff Clavier’s SoftTech VC and actor Ashton Kutcher’s A Grade Investments, and the following month acquired fashion-focused daily deals site FashionStake on Friday for an undisclosed amount. On its website, Fab lists its other investors as including investment firms Cinco Capital (founded by Lars Hinrichs, who set up social network Xing in Germany) and Betashop (the website of Jason Goldberg, founder of Fab),
The latest investment will help the company with its product range and distribution as international expansion. Fab said a fifth of its revenues would come from outside the US this year and this proportion was expected to rise to more than 50% by 2014 after hiring Maria Molland, former head of strategy at news provider Thomson Reuters, earlier this year.
Jason Goldberg, chief executive (CEO) of Fab, said: “Fab can become the definitive global brand synonymous with design. We also know that it will take a steady focus on making our customers smile.
“It’s not a leap to compare Fab with Skype itself, and with another Atomico investment, Rovio — the makers of Angry Birds [that raised $42m in its series A round in March 2011]. Like Skype and Rovio, Fab is focused on developing and nurturing our long term brand relationship with our customers.”
Prior to founding Fab, Goldberg was chief product officer at Xing and before then he was founder and CEO at socialmedian (sold to Xing) and Jobster. Goldberg is also an investor in e-commerce analystics company RJ Metrics, which raised $1.2m in January, and prior investments include TweetDeck, which was sold to social messaging service Twitter.