KKR leads $190m Series C for Korea fashion platform

It marks KKR’s first technology growth investment in Korea as part of its Asia Next Generation Technology strategy. The strategy seeks to support the growth of innovative, disruptive companies in Asia Pacific across themes such as software, consumer technology, and financial technology.

Founded in 2001 as an online sneaker community, Musinsa has evolved into a fashion marketplace that features more than 8,000 local and foreign designer brands and an in-house brand (Musinsa Standard). KKR described it as an anchor of Korea’s creator economy for fashion, differentiated by its ability to scale rising brands.

The company’s business ecosystem includes communities, a brand incubator, a direct-to-consumer brand operator, and an offline multicultural lounge that allows for offline interactions with its customers and provides online brands with a physical space for pop-up stores.

“We see enormous opportunity for Musinsa to build on its leading position in a fast-growing K-fashion market that continues to shift online and expand globally on the back of K-culture’s explosive reach,” Mukul Chawla, a partner and head of growth equity for Asia Pacific at KKR, said in a statement.

Musinsa has more than 13m members and recorded annual gross merchandise value of more than KRW 3trn in 2022. The company raised a KRW 130bn Series B round in 2021 featuring IMM Investment and Sequoia Capital. Sequoia also backed a KRW 100bn Series A in 2019.

The idea of diversifying a sneaker marketplace into a more comprehensive lifestyle offering is well established in Korea. As recently as last March, Kream – a sneaker reselling business that has moved into luxury goods, home appliances, and gadgets – raised KRW 50.6bn from local and regional investors. Kream raised KRW 170bn the prior November.

More actors in this space regionally include Japan’s Soda, operator of sneaker platform Snkr Dunk, which raised a USD 336m Series D in 2021. Kream is an investor in Soda and helping the company with a Korean expansion.

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• Topics
• North Asia
• Consumer
• Expansion
• South Korea
• KKR
• Wellington Management
• Growth capital
• TMT
• e-commerce