Fashion start-up Pomelo raises $19mn in biggest ever series-B round for Thailand

Thai fashion start-up Pomelo has raised $19mn in its latest round of funding.

The series B round of funding was led by JD, a Chinese e-commerce firm, and Provident Capital Partners, an investment firm based in Indonesia. Lombard Investments, a US private equity firm are also participating.

Pomelo was founded in Bangkok in 2014 and started selling Korean fashion via its online platform. It also works with designers to create its own house branded products.

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The company was founded by David Jou its current CEO, Casey Laing and Win Thanapisitikul, current COO.

Jou previously co-founded Lazada Thailand where he worked as Managing Director. Liang was also   Managing Director at Lazada and has worked for Lehman Brothers / Barclays Capital. Thanapisitikul co-founded the Lazada Group having previously been an associate at Goldman Sachs.

In September 2014 Pomelo raised $1.6mn in a pre-series A funding round, and in October last year it had a total funding of $11mn after a series A follow-on led by Jungle Ventures and 500 Startups.

Pomelo has claimed this is the biggest funding round for a Thai start-up ever, and indeed this has been backed up by ‘Tech in Asia’ which states the previous record was $17.5mn raised by payments company Omise in July 2016.