Luxury brand Group Shopal completes Series B+ financing round of RMB 200 million
May 4, 2020
Asia
Shopal, a platform operating international luxury brands in China, has recently completed a Series B+ financing round of RMB 200 million led by fashion leader Youngor Group, with additional funds from Cathay Capital – which also invested in Shopal in October 2016. The Series B+ financing will support the continued rapid growth and technology development that has enabled Shopal to deliver profit margins and cash flow cycles much higher than the industry average. The company will also increase the number of international brands in the group, launch new internally developed brands and building upon the offline and online success of Bonnie & Clyde stores.
Previous investors of Shopal include Lianjie Capital, Dianliang Capital as well as SOSV and its Chinaccelerator. By combining Chinese, French and American capital and online, offline resources, Shopal is drawing on resources from across the globe as it executes on its vision of creating an international new luxury brand group.
Shopal has pioneered the concept of “new luxury” combining a matrix of international luxury beauty, maternity and child brands and a data-driven, online and offline platform operation model bringing innovation to retail. In just 21 months, Shopal has established China’s first full-chain international new luxury brand group.
Shopal has also built a world-class brand management team and is bringing to bear its deep operational experience to innovate across brand positioning, sales and channel management. Through licencing, joint ventures and acquisitions, Shopal will introduce European international luxury brands into China. At present, Shopal has four new luxury brands that are wholly-owned or joint ventures.
Shopal’s “black pearl operation closed-loop system” is an omni-channel retail platform consisting of its own online and offline ecosystem and careful selection of new luxury and all generation brands.
Driven by proprietary first party data and evaluation by its data science team, Shopal is selecting new luxury brands with fast growth and within the RMB 300+, 500+ and 800+ price range. Brands such as Natura Bisse and Chantecaille, managed by Shopal, are now viral sensations in China and positioned to be world leaders in the luxury skincare category. Finally, Shopal has managed the Aveeno brand since 2017 focusing on the maternity and infant care channel and today achieved “super brand” status in China.
The company has an in-house technical data team and has independently developed its own OMS, WMS, ERP, data mining and business intelligence capabilities. Shopal developed its own B2C+B2B distribution methodology with a special focus on social commerce. Shopal has its own network of 10+ warehouses and 20+ shipping and logistics hubs around the world enabling nimble operations, profit optimization, and industry leading margins and inventory turns.
Shopal has launched its own luxury retail chain stores under the brand Bonnie & Clyde from zero to scale via strong online and offline retail presence and technology platform. Shopal has created a seamless offering for Bonnie & Clyde with cross border supply chain, offline and online stores and its retail platform leveraging business intelligence, an online Wechat mini program, in-store display, in-store sales staff and flexible distribution.