Social Bella Retains Investor Support Through Its Latest Investment Round Amid COVID-19

JAKARTA, 6 July 2020 – Social Bella raised US$58 million series E funding from existing investors including Singapore-headquartered Temasek, Pavilion Capital, and Jungle Ventures. The investment comes amid turbulence within the overall business environment due to the current coronavirus pandemic.

The latest funding round will further boost the leading beauty-tech startup growth in Indonesia’s beauty and personal care market, which, according to Euromonitor, is expected to grow to US$8.5 billion by 2022. With the continued support from its investors, Social Bella is well-positioned to unlock that growth potential with its sustainable business model and comprehensive ecosystem.

Co-Founder and President of Social Bella, Christopher Madiam, said “We are proud that the existing and new shareholders see the incredible value of our ecosystem and stay highly supportive of the company’s business plan. This pandemic has massively challenged almost all businesses globally. However, we are adapting quickly to the challenge and continue to serve our consumers’ needs. With our integrated ecosystem backed by technology and based on deep understanding of Indonesian consumers, we can still serve our consumers in a relevant way while remaining competitive. This has resulted in a significant increase in organic traffic to our platform during the quarantine period. We also noticed a record high basket size for Sociolla online thanks to the trust of our consumers amid COVID-19. We are really grateful for the continued support of our investors despite this challenging time.”

Social Bella launched Lilla by Sociolla

Launched in 2015, Social Bella has experienced rapid growth, evolving from being the fastest-growing beauty e-commerce, to a complete ecosystem fully unlocking Indonesia’s growing beauty and personal care market. Social Bella has created several business units and is estimated to serve around 30 million users in 2020. (1) SOCO, the largest consumer review online platform for beauty and personal care products in Indonesia. (2) Beauty Journal, the leading beauty and lifestyle online media with end-to-end O2O marketing service. (3) Sociolla, the number one beauty and personal care e-commerce in Indonesia, which now also has an offline store with the OmniChannel concept. (4) Lilla by Sociolla, the most comprehensive beauty and personal care e-commerce service specifically designed for Indonesian mothers and her loved ones. (5) Brand Development, the business unit that offers end-to-end distributor service for beauty and personal care brands, trusted by numerous leading international manufacturers.

“We see our partnership with Temasek, Pavilion Capital, and Jungle Ventures as key in supporting our long-term mission. Our in-depth knowledge of consumers, combined with Temasek’s extensive experience and Pavilion Capital’s and Jungle Ventures’ comprehensive knowledge for new business opportunities, will enable us to bring our consumers greater value through an expanded range of authentic products and services,” Christopher continued.

Co-Founder and CEO of Social Bella, John Rasjid explained that the new funding will be used to scale up the technology infrastructure. “With stronger support of technological aspects in our everyday routine, we aim to be more relevant and provide continuous improvements to our customers’ experience. We recently launched our new business line, Lilla by Sociolla (lilla.id), specifically for young and sophisticated mothers who are looking for the best-curated products for children and themselves too. There are growing needs for good quality products by this customer group and we will strive to deliver our best to serve their needs.”

Social Bella market relevancy

Social Bella’s long-time business partner, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of East Ventures, Willson Cuaca, also commented, “From the beginning, we have seen Social Bella’s potential and readiness to win the beauty market. Social Bella can differentiate their offering and product to stay relevant to the market. That is the main reason for us to support them continuously every round since 2015. We are pleased that Sociolla team acted decisively and resilient during this pandemic and we are very confident that they will emerge stronger after this crisis.”

David Gowdey from Jungle Ventures is also pleased with this strategic partnership with Social Bella. “Our investment in Social Bella is an important milestone for Jungle in Indonesia. We have never before seen any beauty company that provides a holistic ecosystem like Social Bella and are excited to witness the massive growth in its core businesses. This additional investment will strengthen our alliance with Social Bella and enable Jungle to broaden its partner cooperation more regionally.”

Last year, Social Bella completed its ecosystem as an integrated beauty-tech and end-to-end brand distributor in Indonesia by launching a flagship omnichannel store in Lippo Mall Puri. At present, Social Bella owns 6 physical stores, across the country. Besides Sociolla, Social Bella also recently launched Lilla by Sociolla, a comprehensive e-commerce platform to meet the beauty and personal care needs of Indonesian moms and her loved ones.

Previously, Social Bella secured a Series D investment of US$40 million in September 2019. The investment was led by East Venture Growth (“EV Growth”), Temasek, Pavilion Capital, and Jungle Ventures.