Rocket, Kinnevik to form emerging market fashion e-commerce giant

The five e-commerce platforms include India's Jabong, Southeast Asia and Australia's Zalora, Middle East's Namshi, Latin America's Dafiti, and Russia's Lamoda. The combined company will be called Global Fashion Group (GFG) and will have a combined 4.6 million customers and over 7,000 employees.

Rocket said all direct and indirect shareholders in the five platforms will contribute their shares into a newly-formed Luxembourg-based entity. The three largest shareholders in GFG will be Kinnevik, Rocket and US conglomerate Access Industries, with shares of 25.1%, 23.5% and 7.4%, respectively. The GFG companies will continue to be led by their respective founders and management teams with a few additions to the leadership for the pursuit of global initiatives.

"GFG will be focused on capturing the massive growth opportunity of fashion e-commerce in emerging markets. Each of the business units will be able to build on the original Rocket platform and continue to leverage knowledge and expertise gained across 23 countries," said Oliver Samver, co-founder and CEO of Rocket, in a statement.

GFG will maintain individual business models, including full inventory, branded shops and marketplaces, in order to serve its respective regional markets. In addition, GFG will continue to develop adjacent categories such as personal care, while mobile commerce will remain a core focus for the new company.

Since launching over 2011 and 2012, the five e-commerce sites have attracted more than EUR1 billion in funding from Kinnevik, Access Industries, Summit Partners, Verlinvest, Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan and Tengelmann among others, and still have about EUR350 million in cash as of June 30. In the first half of this year, five websites received 8.4 million orders and generated EUR436 million of gross merchandise volume.

Founded in 2007, Rocket is focused on three sectors: e-commerce, marketplace and financial technology. The internet platform now has more than 20,000 staff across its network of companies, which operates in more than 100 countries.

Rocket's Asian ventures include Lazada, Wimdu, Office Lab and Pricepanda. Last month, Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT) acquired a 10% stake in the firm.

THe GFG transaction is subject to regulatory approval and it's expected to close later this year.

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