Indonesia’s Social Bella expands to Vietnam – its first international market

Social Bella – an Indonesia-based beauty-tech startup – announced that it has officially expanded into its first international market, Vietnam, through its ecommerce platform Sociolla.

Social Bella co-founders (from left): CEO John Rasjid, chief marketing officer Chrisanti Indiana, and president Christopher Madiam / Photo credit: Social Bella

This comes three months after the startup raised US$58 million in a series E round of funding from existing investors Temasek, Pavilion Capital, and Jungle Ventures.

Vietnam’s beauty and personal care market saw an approximately 80% growth in online channels, said the company, citing a report by Cosmetics Design Asia.

“As one of the fastest-growing markets for beauty and personal care in Southeast Asia, with a young and highly digitalized population, Vietnam shares many similarities with Indonesia,” said Christopher Madiam, co-founder and president at Social Bella.

With this international expansion, the company aims to champion Indonesia’s local beauty brands to more customers beyond its home county, Social Bella co-founder and CEO John Rasjid noted.

Launched in 2015, Social Bella has evolved from a beauty and personal care ecommerce company to an online and offline marketplace.

Apart from its online and offline platform Sociolla, it also operates a consumer review platform for beauty and personal care products called Soco, and beauty and lifestyle online media Beauty Journal.

It also offers an end-to-end distributor service for beauty and personal care brands, and recently launched Lilla by Sociolla, the beauty and personal care ecommerce service designed for Indonesian mothers.

With eight physical stores, Social Bella said it is estimated to serve approximately 30 million users this year.