Following on the hundreds of millions handed out for Modcloth, Etsy, Bonobos, Zalando and Pinterest (German link), last week saw another flood of investments in promising e-commerce start-ups totalling well over 100 million Euro. Investments in the 2-digit million range are no longer a rarity.
Gemvara has organized a fourth financing round which tops up the already secured $20 million with an additional $25 million. Gemvara wants to revolutionize the jewellery industry:
Sensee has raised 17.5 million Euro from Partech International. Sensee is a young online prescription eyeglass company from France who is going up against the likes of Glassesdirect (Burda), MisterSpex, and Brille24.
Similarly, Partech can be happy about the participation of the Casino Group (PDF) in their new 100 million euro fund, even if it is limited to a rather modest sum of 5 million Euro (via Journal du Net).
At the same time, the Swiss Migros Group has acquired 30% of the leading online consumer electronics retailer Digitec (German link), including options for a complete takeover (see interview in German).
Westwing has brought on board the Vente-Privée investor Summit Partner in a financing round which secured $50 million (German link). In total, Summit Partners, Holtzbrinck, Rocket Internet, Kinnevik and Access Industries have raised $82 million in Westwing and its spin-offs.
And also Moda Operandi (“Tomorrow’s Fashion Today”), currently the most exciting shopping club concept (German link), has raised a further $36 million and can enjoy strategic partners such as LVMH Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy.
Wattpad has raised $17.3 million for its collaborative publishing model:
Equally exciting is the $15 million for Lending Club, whose banking model has seen a breakthrough, amongst others by Fred Wilson. The investment comes at a time when Smava is mutating from a peer-to-peer concept towards a pure credit brokerage model (German link).
Naturally in the last weeks there were as well loads of smaller investments, for example $3 million for Shoes of Prey and 1.4 million Euro for the notable MakieLab.
For those interested in regular investment news, PEHub is the site to follow. But even they aren’t coming close to covering all of the action.
Originally posted in German by Jochen Krisch, adapted for excitingcommerce.com by Jason Soo.
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