Guhada, a luxury goods platform in Korea, raises $8 million in Series B funding
GUHADA, a South Korean platform specializing in B2B and B2B2C luxury goods distribution, announced on February 21 that it has secured a Series B funding of 8 billion won.
The Series B round was led by Korea Investment Partners, Woori Bank, DTN Investments, and BM Ventures. With this investment, Goohada has raised a total of KRW 13.5 billion in funding.
Korea Investment Partners is an anchor investor that has been investing in Guhada since the seed stage and participated in the Series B investment following the Series A. The investors highly valued Guhada’s business model and monetization potential. In particular, Woori Bank’s investment was recognized for its growth potential as it was selected as one of the companies to be invested in to support SME growth.
As a luxury distribution hub platform that connects local boutiques in Europe, major shopping malls in Korea, and luxury and fashion vertical commerce, Guhada has recorded significant growth in B2B, a business-to-business luxury sales service, and B2B2C, a two-way data linkage business, leading to a rise in overall revenue last year. Last year, the combined sales of the B2B and B2B2C divisions reached 8.2 billion won, up 107% from 3.9 billion won in the previous year, solidifying its position as Korea’s leading luxury goods distribution platform. Combined sales totaled 11.1 billion won last year, up 56% from 7.1 billion won the previous year.
Guhada’s B2B2C business is based on API technology that enables two-way data linkage between ‘European local boutiques ↔ Guhada ↔ large domestic fashion malls’. To date, Guhada has signed direct API data integration contracts with more than 50 European boutiques. In addition, the number of domestic e-commerce companies that have signed B2B2C real-time data integration contracts for luxury goods has increased from 5 in 2021 to 14 last year, including Mustit, Trenby, Balance, Hanstyle, and W Concept. In total, Guha is currently providing more than 2 million data points to its B2B2C partners.
In addition, Guohada has signed pre-order budget agreements with more than 100 boutiques this year in recognition of its online presence and its ability to reliably supply the domestic market with a wide range of luxury goods from European boutiques, from high-demand high-end luxury goods to contemporary goods. Through this, the company secured a large amount of popular luxury goods that meet customer demand, and recently moved to a new logistics center to streamline logistics services.
In July last year, Guhada was selected as a Kibo A+ member of the Technology Guarantee Fund and issued a 1.5 billion won guarantee, and recently joined the Trade Related Intellectual Property Protection Association (TIPA) as a member company.
“We achieved a gross profit margin of 15% last year by focusing on our B2B agency role and B2B2C data integration model in the online luxury market, where there was intense competition to increase transaction volume,” said Yoon Jae-seop, CEO of Guhada. “With this Series B investment, we have proven ourselves as a profitable luxury distribution business model, so this year we will focus on operational efficiency based on our improved technology and boutique sales power to surpass the break-even point.”
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