‘Love, Bonito’ Closes Series C Funding, Strengthens Omnichannel and Expansion

Singapore-based direct-to-customer (DTC) startup “Love, Bonito” announced the acquisition of series C funding of $50 million (over 700 million Rupiah) led by Primavera Capital Group and several other investors.

This investment is Primavera’s first portfolio for a startup in Southeast Asia. The startup that focuses on women’s fashion products plans to use the fresh funds to strengthen its omnichannel strategy and increase international expansion in key markets to pursue triple-digit growth yoy.

These key markets include Japan, Hong Kong, the Philippines, and the United States. In existing markets, such as Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia, Love, Bonito will double its omnichannel strategy.

Meanwhile in other markets, such as Hong Kong, Japan, the Philippines and the US will begin omnichannel expansion, new business verticals, strengthening local community engagement and key collaboration, as well as continuous optimization of user experience.

Becoming One of the Most Popular Brands in Singapore

Love, Bonito is known as the 6th most popular fashion brand in Singapore, able to compete with other international brands. The company has operations and has teams in four other countries, including Malaysia, Cambodia, Indonesia and the Philippines.

In its business model, the company utilizes an omnichannel strategy, which combines online (via apps and websites) and offline (owning stores) shopping experiences. Also, offering a selection of fashion products that have been adapted to Asian postures.

In a virtual press conference held by the company today (27/10), CEO of Love, Bonito Dione Song explained that the omnichannel strategy implemented was able to make the company’s movement more flexible in innovating and launching new product categories.

Those are such as children’s clothes, loungewear, intimates, and shoes, although the retail industry, in general, has been affected by Covid-19.

In the past year, he continued, the company has focused on international expansion which has proven to be able to grow positively. In the global market, outside of Singapore, as much as 50% of business comes from online sites.

The company believes the Asian diaspora community has enormous potential, especially in the US, where online revenue growth exceeds 1,200% yoy in September 2021.

He further detailed that the fresh funds that have been obtained will be used mostly to launch international expansion actions.

The strategies that will be carried out are accelerating brand awareness and building community, investing in forming an international team, deepening omnichannel presence in core and newer markets, winning consumer experience through localization strategies.

Take Full Advantage of Data Science

The community is an important part of Love, Bonito’s journey, which has been established since 2005. According to the company’s records, as many as 32% of consumers that the company acquired 10 years ago still shop at Love, Bonito.

In addition, the annual customer retention rate is more than 65%, which is higher than the fashion industry average of 23%.

“That’s why we launched LBCommunity+ in June 2020 to better appreciate the customers who have been with us. Counting, nearly 300k members at various levels to date have joined.”

Not only that, in terms of utilizing data science technology, it also supports Love, Bonito’s business processes to be more efficient and can create new orders.

The company uses fashion design algorithms to track more than 100 design SKUs to increase predictive power to create the best designs.

Then, armed with rich and contextual data, capable of making Love, Bonito has a single “source of truth” data warehouse that tracks billions of data points over the last 11 years, and customer journeys through omnichannel data integration with 85% of customers tracked.

Finally, customer intelligence includes advanced real-time analytics and feedback loops that drive customer retention, as well as machine learning to automate customer segmentation and personalization.