Lolalola’s Instagram account.
It sounded like the perfect ecommerce idea: in a fairly conservative, Muslim-majority country, sell lingerie online. Women (and men) might be more enticed to purchase if there’s a discreet way and a broad selection.
With this premise, Lolalola launched in March 2015. Today, the startup’s website reads that it has stopped operating, without stating any further reason. The page sends customers to Lolalola’s social media channels instead. It says customers can still make purchases there.
Lolalola is backed by Ardent Ventures, a Thailand-based venture fund part of Ardent Capital. The lingerie website was built and supported by aCommerce, another startup from the Ardent family which offers ecommerce services like logistics and marketing to third parties. The management of Ardent Ventures’ portfolio companies was taken over by another VC, Wavemaker Partners, in mid 2016.
Lolalola’s website today informs visitors about its shutdown.
At the time of launch, a Lolalola press release suggested that the startup would “win the online lingerie market.” One such winning strategy would be to use “real local models with real product images” instead of stock images.
Little of that seems to have been achieved. Lolalola’s Facebook page and Instagram still feature mostly foreign models.
The press release also stressed the importance of Ardent Capital’s and aCommerce’s ecommerce experience as a competitive advantage.
Neither Ardent Capital, aCommerce, nor Lolalola CEO Donna Lesmana were immediately available for comment.
(Update: 8:48pm: Added information about the merger of Ardent Ventures’s portfolio with Wavemaker Partners.)
Editing by Neha Margosa and Malavika Velayanikal
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