Ponhu Luxury, a leading domestic luxury platform with investment from INCE Capital, announced on June 17 that it had closed its Series C round of funding at approximately $50 million, and INCE Capital which led the Series B round continued to invest in this round.
“We are very happy to see that during and after the Covid-19 epidemic last year, Ponhu has successfully developed its livestreaming-based 2C business model and is doing better and better in this area with rapid growth. This is largely due to the company’s long-term efforts put in the supply chain end. Livestreaming may seem like something many people can do, but the ability to have adequate and good enough goods and fast enough shipping and iteration is a core advantage that sets the company apart from others. Meanwhile, Ponhu’s team also excels at learning and organizing. The company has shown a very good ability to update and iterate its organization during and after the epidemic, with the joining of more talents. Ponhu’s strategy has become clearer now, with strong integrated capabilities combining the S2B2C collection capability at the back end and the public domain traffic acquisition and monetization and private domain traffic operation capabilities at the front end. We are even looking forward to possible offline stores, brand empowerment and other new businesses in the future!” said Steven Hu, founding partner of INCE Capital.
This round was co-led by Focustar Capital and ATM Capital, with additional investment from earlier investors INCE Capital and Before Capital, raising a total of approximately $50 million. The lineup of the Series C round is eye-catching, as the institutions all have rich investment experience in consumer goods or new retail. This is also the largest funding round closed in this track this year.
Ponhu Luxury is a leading domestic distribution platform for idle luxury goods and full industry chain service provider. Unlike the light-asset model (for example, consignment and professional MCN) adopted by most players in this track, Ponhu has insisted on the heavy-asset model of appraisal first, price discovery and buyout control since the beginning of its founding, and has continuously strengthened its technology-driven and supply chain capabilities to establish strong goods recovery and control networks, trend judgement and product pricing algorithms, remote intelligent luxury appraisal and valuation systems, multiple sales channels and a large group of high-spending customers. The company has established a “sustainable fashion distribution platform” covering both C- and B-end customers and integrating online and offline channels.
“We hope to develop the Chinese version of Farfetch,” said Ma Cheng, founder and chairman of Ponhu Luxury, “In Ponhu Stage 1.0, we tapped into the most closed high-end fashion industry through second-hand trading to gain control over customers, data and supply chain. During Stage 2.0, we empowered buyer’s shops, second-hand stores and large merchants that lack Internet sales base. We have now entered into Stage 3.0, hoping to build our own version of Off-White in China by empowering more trendy national brands and designer brands.”
Ponhu said that the funds raised from this round will still be used for the improvement of its most core data and supply chain capabilities. The company will continue to invest heavily in AI appraisal technologies, price algorithm training and intelligent supply chain capability improvement to ultimately enhance user experience. On the other hand, the company will also take new steps to integrate online and offline channels and incubate trendy national brands. In the future, Ponhu will upgrade from simply being a second-hand luxury trading platform to functioning as a sustainable fashion ecosystem.
