Summit Partners announced on Tuesday that is investing €20m (R224m) in the German parent company of online fashion retailer Zando. Much of the cash will reportedly flow to the South African arm of the company.
Last month, the European company secured an investment from JP Morgan Asset Management worth more than US$10m, though the exact figure has not been disclosed.
Summit Partners has a presence in North America, Asia and Europe and has stakes in hundreds of businesses in those regions. In its 30 years in business, the equity group has raised almost $15bn.
Zando MD and co-founder Manuel Koser tells TechCentral that the investment is a “great vote of confidence for the South African e-commerce market and for the business we’ve built over the last 10 months”.
Zando was launched in January and initially sold only footwear before expanding into clothing, accessories and cosmetics.
Koser says the investment will help the company grow its operation and streamline its processes. “Our business model is cash heavy as we hold inventory for everything we carry on the website,” he says. “We’re like a physical retailer in that sense, it’s just that online is our only sales channel.”
Some of the investment will be used to enlarge Zando’s warehousing capabilities and Koser says it will also be used to optimise the service’s back-end infrastructure. — (c) 2012 NewsCentral Media
