Catch Fashion operator Smile Ventures raises 21 billion won in Series B

Smile Ventures, the operator of online luxury goods platform Catch Fashion, announced on the 27th that it had raised KRW 21 billion in Series B funding. The investment brings Smile Ventures’ cumulative funding to KRW 38 billion.

Existing Series A investors Shinhan Capital and SV Investment participated in the latest round, reaffirming their confidence in the company’s growth prospects. New investors included Mirae Asset, DS Asset Management, Must Ventures and VIP Asset Management.

In its early days in 2017, Smile Ventures raised seed funding from Hanwha Galleria and Ticket Monster and was selected as a Frontier Venture by the Korea Technology Finance Corporation.

As of the end of last year, Smile Ventures had surpassed KRW 80 billion in cumulative transaction value, which has grown by more than 200% annually.

Powered by its ICT capabilities, Catch Fashion offers a metasearch service that lets users compare and search across 3.5 million products from official luxury retailers worldwide, and complete purchases in one place. A new kind of platform for Korea’s online luxury market, it connects users with luxury brands and more than 30 of their official overseas online sales channels. It acts as an aggregator, enabling real-time price comparisons and searches across products on well-known international online platforms.

Catch Fashion’s key advantage is that it is the only luxury platform in Korea to sell exclusively authentic products sourced through official channels, without parallel imports or purchasing agents. Its partnerships with luxury brands and their authorized distributors underpin its core promise: selling only official products.

Smile Ventures plans to use the funding to advance its strategy for capturing a rapidly growing online luxury market. It aims to establish itself as Korea’s only global luxury aggregator platform by enhancing personalized services to optimize the luxury shopping experience. The company will also step up hiring to strengthen its competitiveness. In addition, it plans to accelerate customer growth by expanding into related luxury categories, including home and living and kids’ products, following its recent expansion beyond luxury fashion and accessories.

“This funding round recognizes the growth potential of a luxury aggregator platform that distributes only official products,” said Smile Ventures CEO Lee Woo-chang. “We will strengthen our personalized services to optimize the customer shopping experience and expand our product categories through partnerships with overseas brands and authorized distributors. Our goal is to become the only platform where customers can shop at reasonable prices without worrying about counterfeit goods.”

Catch Fashion: https://www.catchfashion.com/