Design-centric e-commerce site Jooix gets USD 500k from Beacon New Ventures

Curated e-commerce sites have been coming up on our radar lately, offering products that are ‘design-centric’ and ‘tasteful’. In other words, these businesses are differentiating themselves not by price or quantity of choice, but by the quality of their collection.

In Singapore, there’s CuriousCatch and HipVan, both of which are emphasizing the cool factor by selling goods from independent designers. Beauty box startups like VanityTrove and Bellabox too are selling curated products to their customers.

Now add Jooix to the mix. Launched in late 2011 by former branding and communications executive Angeline Seow, Jooix sells mainly lifestyle products and gifts.It got a shot in the arm when it raised USD 500k from Beacon New Ventures, a new private equity from Australia that was started in 2012 and has just expanded to Singapore. The deal was sealed after 5 weeks of negotiation. Beacon helps its clients identify market gaps and develop go-to-market strategies. Some of its clients may end up becoming investees.

According to John Neal, co-founder of Beacon, Jooix possessed strong margins and significant quarterly revenue despite having no marketing spend.

Beacon will be helping Jooix with its upcoming marketing campaign, which includes pop-up stores and digital marketing. The startup hopes to expand across borders and gain customers in Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand.

E-commerce companies in Asia have been under pressure lately from large players like Rocket Internet’s Zalora and Lazada. The former has just announced a USD 26M funding round and an annualized revenue in the double digit millions.

While the market is certainly big enough to accommodate more than one player, it could mean that the potential growth of these smaller competitors would be affected.

Visit VentureDex for more information about funding options for startups in Asia.