Belt Road leads $7m round for Vietnam's LeFlair

Other participants include the venture capital arm of GS Group, a Korean conglomerate active in various online and retail-related segments. It brings LeFlair's total funding to date to $12 million, with previous investors including Capital Management Group, AME Ventures, Caldera Pacific, 500 Startups, and Apple Tree Asia. 

Founded in 2015, LeFlair helps Vietnamese shoppers access a range of branded merchandise in the categories of fashion, beauty, and home-related products. It claims to have grown by 100% a year on average since inception and now sells merchandise from more than 1,500 brands. Operations currently extend across Vietnam, Singapore, and Hong Kong, and are expected to expand further this year.

"We believe cross-border is the future of e-commerce in Southeast Asia and with this additional funding, our customers will soon be able to purchase even more brands from new international hubs, in particular Korea and Japan, while enjoying the same delivery experience as for domestic deliveries," Loic Gautier, co-founder and CEO of Leflair, said in a statement.

LeFlair's business model is based largely around a trend of increased demand for branded products in Vietnam's growing consumer space. The company plans to fill this demand by leveraging its partnership with GS to bring more merchandise into the country from Korea. It will also hire additional staff to support internationalization and invest in fulfillment, delivery, and technology.

Belt Road launched its debut fund at $50 million last year with a focus on small to medium-sized enterprises in the Greater Mekong region. Previous investments include Cambodian telecommunications company Unnitel, Myanmar-based travel services provider Oway, and Australian online marketing player Digital Classifieds Group.

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• Topics
• Southeast Asia
• Consumer
• Early-stage
• Vietnam
• TMT
• e-commerce