Japan group buying site LUXA closes US$5.3M series B funding from JAFCO
LUXA, a group buying site based in Japan, has just received a ¥500 million (US$5.3 million) in series B funding from the JAFCO Super V3 Series Fund.
The series B funding at the exact same amount of its series A funding, also for US$5.3 million secured from JAFCO back in November 2010, making the total financing of ¥1 billion (US$10.64 million, to date.
The new funding will be used for various growth initiatives including strengthening of its sales force, acceleration of customer acquisition efforts, as well as the launch of various vertical sites targeting specific categories. The company also plans to use the new funding to expand membership to more than 1 million members from its current 350,000. Annual revenue is expected to be boosted to over ¥10 billion (US$105 million) by March 2016.
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LUXA is a daily deals site like Groupon, but it positions itself towards the higher-income demographic by listing only premium items, such as premium merchandise, including electronics, apparel, food and lifestyle items. Additionally, the site provides home decor and entertaining essentials, along with travel packages and offers on local services and experiences.
Most sales start at noon each day and lasts for only 72 hours.
LUXA is founded by Swimmy Minami, who is also the founder of BizReach, a jobs marketplace that offers high-level jobs (job positions that offer US$100,000 or more annually), with over 140,000 job-seekers and over 1,600 recruiters on its platform.
Headquartered in Tokyo, LUXA also has local presences in a few Japanese cities and has expanded to Osaka (April 2012), Nagoya (February 2013) and Fukuoka (February 2013).
Other than LUXA, recently we also saw NTT DoCoMo, Japan’s largest mobile operator, acquiring a majority stake in fashion e-commerce site Magaseek. In Singapore, Rocket Internet’s Zalora also received a US$26 million in investment to expand its e commerce operations. We are increasingly seeing e-commerce platforms receiving a lot of attention and funding injections from venture capital firms to boost their reach and growth. This makes a lot of sense especially when e-commerce platforms are revenue-generating and the profit margin grows along with its traction along with amplified reach.
Read also: NTT DoCoMo acquires majority stake in e-commerce site Magaseek for US$22M
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