Online fashion retailer The Iconic has received another investment boost, this time receiving US$20 million from a US-based investment firm.
The cash injection comes from privately held group Access Industries, funds managed by US-based asset management firm Scopia Capital Management LLC as well as other institutional investors.
The funding is a piece of bigger US$112 million investment into the ZALORA Group, which The Iconic is part of.
The ZALORA Group was founded in late 2011 and is an online fashion business based in the Asia-Pacific, with a number of prominent, localised e-commerce sites.
The investment into The Iconic is one of a series the fashion business has received in the last two years, totalling around $78 million. In July this year it received a boost of $28 million from Verlinvest and existing shareholders Investment AB Kinnevik and Summit Partners.
Other investors in the business include JPMorgan, and global e-commerce incubator Rocket Internet.
Co-founder Adam Jacobs told SmartCompany this morning that the new investment would be put towards growing the business in 2014.
He says customer experience, delivery options, developing mobile commerce and boosting the range of labels offered by the site will be the focus.
The business is yet to break even, with Jacobs confirming the company is “still in the investment growth phase”.
“We have a plan to profitability agreed with our investors,” he says.
“Some online retailers take seven to eight years to be profitable. We are on track faster than that.”
The Iconic chief executive officer Patrick Schmidt said the company was approaching its one millionth order in Australia.
Jacobs says the business will be launching a collaboration with Parcel Point this week, to enable Christmas shoppers to pick up their orders from locations other than busy post offices.
It will also offer deliveries on orders made on Christmas Eve, in time for Christmas Day, in a bid to cater for last-minute shoppers.
Earlier this year, another co-founder Finn Haensel left the business after two years to return to his home town in Germany.
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Melinda is a business writer and editor and helps companies to bring their brand stories to life through her small business, Oliver Content. Melinda was previously the content manager for KPMG Australia, an editor of SmartCompany, and spent many years as a journalist.
