Baidu, VCs provide $15m round for fashion site Yoka
Baidu has led a $15 million round of funding for Yoka, a Chinese fashion website. Fidelity Growth Partners also participated in the round alongside existing investors IDG Capital Partners, Matrix Partners and Hearst Corporation.
Established in 2006 as Beijing Kai Ming Fashion Network Technology, the company claims to be the first fully-integrated high-end fashion and lifestyle portal in China, offering information services, online communities and e-commerce.
As of March 2012, its primary asset, Yoka.com, had peak daily page views of 35 million with up to 2.6 million unique visitors. The company also operates a separate website dedicated to men's fashion, a mobile app platform, and a shopping site known as Ymall.
Jun Zhou, the company's founder, told local media that Yoka owned the rights to more than 2 million high-quality fashion images while users have contributed over 7 million product reviews and tips. He expects Yoka to accumulate more content over the next seven years, adding that more time and resources will be devoted to product integration.
According to AVCJ Research, IDG provided Yoka's first two rounds of funding in 2006 and 2009, the latter being worth $10 million. Matrix and Hearst joined at the Series C stage two years later.
More on Venture
Latest News
Asian GPs slow implementation of ESG policies - survey
Asia-based private equity firms are assigning more dedicated resources to environment, social, and governance (ESG) programmes, but policy changes have slowed in the past 12 months, in part due to concerns raised internally and by LPs, according to a...
Singapore fintech start-up LXA gets $10m seed round
New Enterprise Associates (NEA) has led a USD 10m seed round for Singapore’s LXA, a financial technology start-up launched by a former Asia senior executive at The Blackstone Group.
India's InCred announces $60m round, claims unicorn status
Indian non-bank lender InCred Financial Services said it has received INR 5bn (USD 60m) at a valuation of at least USD 1bn from unnamed investors including “a global private equity fund.”
Insight leads $50m round for Australia's Roller
Insight Partners has led a USD 50m round for Australia’s Roller, a venue management software provider specializing in family fun parks.