NA-KD announces a $45M B-round to accelerate global expansion

The Swedish fashion e-commerce company has grown 150%+ in 2017. The series B round totalling $45M is led by Partech with the participation of NA-KD's existing investors Northzone, eEquity, Jonas Norlander and Filip Engelbert (Avito founders) and US-based FJ Labs.

NA-KD is a global online direct-to-consumer (DTC) brand for women, founded in 2015 by serial entrepreneur Jarno Vanhatapio. NA-KD provides trendy millennials with stylish yet affordable clothes, mainly marketed through social influencers. After just two years, NA-KD is already among the most quoted global online fashion brands on Instagram but mainly in Sweden and Germany, with a highly scalable fashion collaboration platform with star influencers. At the end of NA-KD´s second full year of operations, the company had a revenue run-rate of close to $75M (SEK600M), growing 150%+ vs 2016.

The new funding round is led by Partech, a leading global tech investment firm with several e-commerce successes like UK-based Made.com or France-based ManoMano in its portfolio.

NA-KD.com will use the new $40M primary funding to accelerate the exponential growth of the company and reinforce its leadership as the preferred fashion brand for millennials, with the launch of 9 new localised sites in the coming months, the continuous hiring of world class talent, and the strong development of collection collaborations with leading worldwide social influencers.

Founder and CEO Jarno Vanhatapio says:

“We have had great interest from the investment community and we were in the fortunate position to be able to choose who to partner up with. I am happy to welcome Partech into the NA-KD team. Partech really impressed us with their high ambitions, deep domain knowledge, extensive omnichannel expertise among the partners and their impressive investment portfolio.”

Omri Benayoun, General Partner at Partech says:

“We are extremely proud and grateful that Jarno and his team have chosen to partner with us. We have been very impressed by their visionary approach to social media and brand-building, the world-class complementary executive team they assembled, and the industrial-grade operations they put in place, all while scaling their revenues in such a short period of time. This is quite unique. We are very excited to help them write the new chapter of fast fashion in the age of social.”

Bruno Crémel, General Partner at Partech says:

“At Partech, we are big believers in digital native Direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands. That thesis led us to invest in 2015 in Made.com, now the clear pan-European leading brand in contemporary online furniture. Since then, we have been on the lookout for the best DTC brands in Europe. We met Jarno this fall, and to say we were impressed is an understatement. Today, we are extremely proud to announce that Partech has led NA-KD’s Series B financing round.”

Jessica Schultz, Partner at Northzone says:

“When we first met Jarno before our initial investment a year ago, we were impressed by the vision of the company. Over the past 12 months, we have seen that NA-KD’s model, with its clever use of influencers and limited collections, has created a brand that speaks authentically to its consumers. Engagement levels on all channels are high, and NA-KD today has customers in over 170 countries. This, coupled with the team’s relentless focus on optimizing all parts of the supply chain, has delivered extraordinary results in terms of margin improvements and revenue growth.”

NA-KD´s executive chairman, Magnus Emilson comments:

“The capital injection is growth capital and will primarily be used to improve the customer proposition and experience, offer a broader inventory and intensified international marketing activities. Today the company employs 138 people and with the Series B investment, the company will look to further strengthen all departments with high performing talents.”

Jarno Vanhatapio continues:

“In Q1 2017 we moved our main distribution centre to the Netherlands and in Q4 2017 we launched our new website and IT platform. Executing two massive projects in the same year and delivering growth of 153% YoY proves that we have a stellar team at NA-KD. We will continue to invest in growth during 2018, especially targeting the US, UK and major European markets with nine localised and translated sites and with localised marketing. Although we significantly improved the bottom-line results during 2017, international growth is still number one, two and three on our priority list for 2018. Our bottom-line results are moving towards profitability exactly as planned. More than 80% of sales are coming from private label brands with strong gross margins. This development has given us some profitable markets already in our second year, and all in all the company is profitable post-marketing cost.”

About NA-KD.com

Nakdcom One World AB is Jarno Vanhatapio’s third e-commerce company, having founded Nelly.com (2003) and Zoozoo.com (2013). NA-KD was founded in April 2015 and operates in the global market of fast fashion, primarily online, but also through pop up stores. NA-KD.com launched in January 2016 and is established as a global fashion player with annual revenue run rate of SEK600M ($73M). The websites had 50 million visitors in 2017. The brand NA-KD is one of the fastest growing in social media, and has since the start earned over 1.4 million global followers only on Instagram. NA-KD.com has under its first 24 months of operation, delivered customer orders to 173 countries and ships every month to 130 countries. The majority of the sales are from NA-KD.com and the own brands, such as NA-KD Trend and NA-KD Boho, designed in-house. NA-KD the brand is also represented by over 300 retailers across the globe and is listed on Zalando. www.na-kd.com