Zalora Gets $26 Million from Germany’s Tengelmann, Plans New Developer Base in Singapore

Original image credit: opensecrets.org

Rocket Internet’s Southeast Asia-oriented online fashion shop Zalora announced today that it has received a cool US$26 million investment from German retail company Tengelmann Group. Christian Winter, the CEO of Tengelmann Ventures commented on this latest investment:

We are confident that this is a synergistic and promising partnership given both our strengths in retail and the tremendous potential of the e-commerce market in Asia. Zalora’s success in the market, growth trajectory, management team and investor base speak volumes about how the company is fast becoming the undisputed leader for online fashion and beauty retail in many countries.

The regional managing director of Zalora Southeast Asia Michele Ferrario said in today’s announcement that Tengelmann’s experience in retailing and e-commerce can help Zalora to achieve the top spot position in fashion and beauty e-tailing.

Rocket Internet seems to have very deep pockets right now with this latest funding round. Prior to Tengelmann, Rocket Internet has received investment for Asia-focused Zalora and Lazada from JP Morgan, Swedish investment firm AB Kinnevik, and Summit Partners among others.

Tengelman invested earlier this year in the Amazon-esque Lazada.

Singapore as Zalora’s technology stronghold

Coinciding with today’s news, we were also told that Zalora has recently started building a regional software development center in Singapore. A Zalora representative explained this latest move:

Our chief product officer had shared that Zalora chose Singapore over seven other lower-cost Zalora countries for the talent pool in Singapore – two top universities with excellent Computer Science departments, and fresh talent from the polytechnics. We have been and still are actively recruiting locally to build the ZALORA platform/webshop as well as the upcoming apps.

Zalora Singapore HQ has been used to plan and implement the fashion e-commerce store’s technology roadmap. This latest regional software development center will have complete control over the company’s plans for the webshop’s platform development and innovation.