Men’s fashion ecommerce site Maskoolin last week announced a pre-series A funding round of an undisclosed amount. It’s based out of Jakarta and focuses on the Indonesian market.
The new capital comes from Indra Djokosoetono, an owner and family member of Indonesia’s largest taxi company, Blue Bird Group. It’s one of the nation’s highest-profile family-owned conglomerates, which recently went public on the Indonesia Stock Exchange.
Maskoolin was built in 2012 by entrepreneurs Ilham Syafrialdi, Errol Widhavian, Kristian Harahap, and Kemal Wiryawan. In February 2013, the startup grabbed seed funding from local venture capital firm Grupara. Since then, Maskoolin hasn’t got much media attention and no follow-on funding rounds despite the nation’s ongoing ecommerce boom.
Tough to grow
“Maskoolin started out as a flash sale ecommerce site and we realized that it is really hard to scale this type of business. Not many brands are happy working with full discounted websites like what we did before,” Maskoolin’s CEO Ilham tells Tech in Asia. “New, similar ecommerce competitors have also emerged since 2014 and this may have affected our growth as well. The hectic nature of running logistics operations and production was always the biggest problem for us to scale.”
Regardless, Aryo Ariotedjo, founder and managing partner of Grupara says he remains optimistic about the startup. “I always believed in the team’s potential. Products may fail, but founders are the ones who will always improve and find the best model to grow the business,” says Aryo. “I am very proud with the team, as they have made it thus far and I am sure that Maskoolin will be something majestic in the future.”
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