Female social commerce startup Kleora bags seed round led by Rebright Partners

Kleora, a marketplace and online shop aggregator for women’s products in Indonesia, announced last Friday that it received a seed funding round of an undisclosed amount led by Japanese venture capital firm Rebright Partners, and followed by anonymous angel investors.

Kleora launched in private beta near the end of 2014, positioning itself as a “social commerce” player. Kleora (previously named Kadriana) is a consumer-to-consumer (C2C) marketplace for vendors who utilize social media like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to sell their stuff. In addition to the funding news, the startup also just announced its new Android app.

Kleora is headed by Fransiska Hadiwidjana, a 25-year-old graduate of Silicon Valley’s Singularity University. According to her, Indonesia is the perfect market for her social commerce business tool. The fresh capital will be used for ongoing operational expenses, according to a statement from Kleora.

“This trend is continuously moving. From the time it started on Kaskus, the online shop sellers have moved to Facebook, BBM, and finally now, the trend is appearing on Instagram,” says Hadiwidjana. “Different from the C2C trend of men’s products that seems [still] comfortable in Kaskus, [the] women’s market seems more explorative in trying the new platform.”

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Last year, Kleora received a donation from the government of Chile after the startup participated in the national Startup Chile competition. The main new feature in the firm’s new app is KleoraSync, which allows sellers to integrate their online shops from social media with their registered Kleora accounts.

In the past, Kleora monetized by marking up prices and taking a commisison of up to 7 percent. Now, Hadiwidjana says that Kleora customers are no longer subject to that markup.

Hadiwidjana didn’t comment on Kleora’s current number of monthly active users, nor on a dollar amount of deals facilitated to date. However, Indonesia’s market opportunity for social commerce is large to say the least. Kleora indirectly competes with existing local players in the social commerce space like Shopious and Onigi.