Social Bella Indonesia, the company behind the popular beauty e-commerce platform Sociolla.com, has secured US$40 million in a Series D round of investment, co-led by EV Growth and Temasek.

WHO: Founded in 2015, Social Bella is an integrated beauty-tech company focusing on developing “a scalable and sustainable” online and offline ecosystem for beauty and personal care. Over the past few years, Social Bella has evolved from an e-commerce to a beauty ecosystem with three business units—commerce (Sociolla), media (SO.CO and Beauty Journal), and Brand Development (offers end-to-end distributor service for beauty and personal care brands). Cumulatively, over 20.2 million (unique) visitors joined the Social Bella platforms in 2018, including the Sociolla website, SOCO platform, and Beauty Journal, claims the company. This year, the company opened two O2O concept stores in Jakarta.

WHY: The funding is earmarked to strengthen human resources capabilities, with particular attention on technology-related functions.

IN THEIR OWN WORDS: “As we believe that technology can be a key driver of Indonesia’s beauty industry, we will invest in the development of our digital assets SOCO. By focusing on user experience, this platform integrates Sociolla and Beauty Journal to meet the needs of women with a more optimal, relevant and personalised experience. This allows us to reach a wider market and accelerate our business further while providing comprehensive beauty services,” said John Rasjid, co-founder and CEO of Social Bella.

“With this round of funding, we expect to reach more audiences with 100 million (unique) users visiting our integrated ecosystem, SOCO, Sociolla.com and Beauty Journal by 2021,” said Christopher Madiam, co-founder and President of Social Bella.

DETAILS:

• Social Bella Indonesia has secured US$40 million in a Series D round of investment.
• The round was co-led by EV Growth and Temasek with participation by new investors such as Singapore-based EDBI, Pavilion Capital, and Jungle Ventures.
• A $12 million Series C funding round in May 2018 was led by EV Growth, a joint venture fund by East Ventures, SMDV, and Yahoo! Japan Capital. istyle Inc., a publicly listed beauty-tech company from Japan, and UOB Ventures also participated in last year’s Series C round.
• In Indonesia, Social Bella competes with Orami, which in 2016 secured a $15 million round of investment, and LYKE, which raised $4 million in Series A funding from a German VC fund later in the same year. Sorabel is another well-funded competitor that has entered the space.