Bellabox raises $5.5 million to send their beauty boxes across Asia Pacific

Beauty box company Bellabox, who delivers beauty product samples to members for them to try before they buy, have been quietly slogging away in the past year. Last we heard from them, they had raised a US$1.4 million series A round. Now, the fruits of their labor are revealed – they have today announced the raising of an additional A$6 million (US$5.5 million) from digital publishing company Allure Media, who is a subsidiary of Fairfax Media. Around A$3 million (US$2.7 million) of that will be going straight into the business, with the rest going to other channels such as outgoing shareholders.

According to Emily Hamilton, managing director and co-founder of Bellabox, the money will go towards expanding their service across Asia Pacific – they are currently testing the response in five markets to determine where they will launch and when – as well as to evaluate the potential of launching subscription services targeting other customer segments.

“This latest funding will also be used to further invest in technology to scale and maximise the potential of Bellabox’s ecommerce platform, both to improve the customer experience and provide better intelligence and tools to Bellabox’s brand partners,” she adds.

So far, the team has grown their database from 6,000 to 40,000 members across Australia and Singapore. Hamilton claims that they are currently the leading beauty subscription service in Australia with 70 percent market share, while Singapore’s subscriber base has grown by 54 percent since May 2014.

Their partnership with Allure Media, who works with the top beauty and lifestyle brands in the Australian market, will certainly help in extending their reach there. Hamilton adds that they will be building up their tech and product teams locally in order to take the company to the next level.

Most of Bellabox’s competitors have faded away over the past years, with startups such as VanityTrove hitting a plateau for their beauty box service and pivoting to other sources of revenue. With Bellabox’s subscriber base growing steadily, however, Hamilton is confident that there is still a very strong demand for their products.

See: Beauty boxes, a once great ecommerce trend in Asia, has unraveled