Indonesian fashion ecommerce site 8wood pulls seed funding

8wood, a fashion ecommerce site for women in Indonesia, announced today that it raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding from local venture capital firm Ideosource. The startup will use the newly-acquired capital for recruitment, marketing, and product development.

“We are looking for investors that are able to give mentorship as well as partners to exchange thoughts and views. We believe that Ideosource is the perfect partner and we are happy to be joining forces with them,” says Alvin Yodhapatria, co-founder and CEO of 8wood.

Yodhapatria started 8wood, which works on a a business-to-consumer model, in late 2013 with his wife, Alice Norin. Prior to building the site, Yodhapatria was a DJ and an event organizer. Norin, on the other hand, is an Indonesian actress, having appeared in several films and television shows. According to 8wood, the pair built 8wood to serve a young, dynamic, and independent demographic of women in Indonesia.

Trend-setters turned entrepreneurs

“Alvin Yodhapatria is a proven entrepreneur with the ability to build companies from ground up through his persistence and creativity,” says Andi S. Boediman, managing partner of Ideosource. “He is able to provide an operational excellence to satisfy the customer demand. Alice’s contribution on the creative direction and insightful vision has also proven to be a major strength for 8wood to disrupt the local market, as well as differentiate the company from other local online stores.”

See: Indonesia’s Female Daily Network raises $1M in series A funding

Norin is responsible for the styles, photographs, and captions of each 8wood product, while Yodhapatria handles sales and operations. The team curates the latest fashion products to match Alice’s own style, look, and attitude. This resonates well with the type of young and independent spirit found in today’s urban women.

8wood says it focuses on three things: beautiful fashion design pictures, 24-hour customer service, and an innovative social media presence. Understanding that photo-sharing on Instagram is a strategic online shopping trend in Indonesia, 8wood says it has already garnered more than 120,000 followers on Instagram alone. Through social media comments and interactions, the team claims to process 100 orders each day without a marketing budget.

By 2020, Boston Consulting Group predicts that the middle-class and affluent consumer population in Indonesia would reach 141 million. Given that timeline, a geographic shift is taking place in Indonesia’s retail industry. It’s increasingly moving from Jakarta to secondary cities, where rising purchasing power is growing hand-in-hand with a consumption boom.