Senreve raises funds for Asian expansion

Online fashion startup Senreve has raised US$16.75 million in Series A funding to expand into the fast-growing Asian market.

The funds bring Senreve’s total capital raised to more than $23 million within three years.

Led by Norwest Venture Partners, this latest round of funding will help co-founders Coral Chung and Wendy Wen take Senreve to reach a more global scale from its San Francisco base.“We focus on authentic brand storytelling, creating beautiful and luxurious products, and engaging with customer feedback and data,” said Senreve co-founder and CEO Coral Chung.

“We’re thrilled to bring on an institutional partner like Norwest, and especially excited to partner with Sonya Brown who has a phenomenal track record of backing successful consumer brands,” said the firm’s COO Wendy Wen.

“In a world where direct-to-consumer channels have become increasingly crowded, Senreve has been extremely savvy about how they introduce themselves digitally,” said Norwest general partner Sonya Brown. “Coral and Wendy’s ability to build a luxury brand practically overnight is a testament to their authentic understanding of the modern woman. In particular, Senreve resonates with the next generation of powerful women because they don’t want to compromise functionality to achieve luxury, and they shouldn’t have to. I am thrilled to partner with them for this next, exciting chapter.”

The new funding is expected to significantly expand Senreve’s product offering, grow its geographic presence – particularly in its expanding Asian markets where it is looking to form strategic partnerships – and explore new brick-and-mortar retail opportunities.

As a female-founded start-up, this latest round of funding is a milestone for the company as well as extremely rare in the startup landscape. According to PitchBook, female-founded start-up companies receive only 2.2 per cent of the total capital invested by US venture capital firms, despite owning 38 per cent of businesses in the country.