MMC's Boticca bolts on L'Atelier De La Mode

Ellie Pullen
30 September 2013

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MMC Ventures-backed Boticca has acquired French online designer fashion marketplace L’Atelier De La Mode, just weeks after receiving a £2.5m investment from an MMC-led consortium.

L'Atelier De La Mode has been absorbed into Boticca to become the company's new French website – L'Atelier De La Mode's website now redirects customers to Boticca.fr. None of L'Atelier De La Mode's employees will be transferred to work for Boticca.

The acquisition takes the global customer database of Boticca, a London-based luxury fashion accessories e-commerce site, up to 500,000.

The bolt-on is part of Boticca's roll-out strategy across Europe to offer its site in different languages. According to Boticca CEO and co-founder Kiyan Foroughi, France is the company's fourth largest global market in terms of sales (after the UK, the US and Australia) and its top non-English speaking market. Both of Boticca's founders are also French.

Currently, the company's sales come at 50% from Europe, 30% from the US and 20% from both Asia Pacific and the Middle East. Boticca ships its brands to more than 90 different countries worldwide.

Boticca announced its intentions to roll out local-language versions of its website when MMC led the £2.5m series-A round for the company at the beginning of September. The funding from the round was earmarked specifically for the internationalisation of the company. The round also saw several high-net-worth individuals and previous backer Isai inject fresh capital into the business.

Boticca was founded in 2010, is headquartered in London and currently employs 20 staff. The company operates an online marketplace for jewellery and fashion accessories made by independent designers.

Company
L'Atelier De La Mode was founded in 2008 by Jonathan Lipfeld and headquartered in Paris. The company operated an online designer fashion marketplace and had garnered approximately 100,000 customers in France since its launch.

People
CEO Foroughi co-founded Boticca alongside COO Avid Larizadeh. Jonathan Lipfeld is the founder of L'Atelier De La Mode. MMC partner Jon Coker manages the firm's investment in Boticca.