Musinsa, an online fashion platform in South Korea, raised a $190 million round of Series C funding led by KKR, with participation from Wellington Management.
Founded in 2001 as an online sneaker platform, Musinsa features over “8,000 local and foreign designer brands and its in-house brand, Musinsa standard, anchoring the creator economy for fashion in South Korea.”
The company expanded over the years to include a “comprehensive ecosystem including communities, a brand incubator, Musinsa Partners, a direct-to-consumer brand operator, and an offline multicultural lounge, Musinsa Terrace, that allows for offline interactions with its customers and provides online-based fashion brands with a physical space for pop-up stores.”
In 2023, Musinsa reported it had over 13 million members and recorded an annual gross merchandise value (GMV) of over 3 trillion won (US$2.35 billion) as of 2022. Fast Company named Musinsa among the “10 most innovative Asia Pacific companies of 2023 for globalizing K-fashion.”
This transaction marks KKR’s first technology growth investment in Korea as part of its Asia Next Generation Technology (NGT) strategy, which “seeks to support the growth of innovative, disruptive companies in Asia Pacific across key themes, including software, consumer technology and FinTech.”
Mukul Chawla, partner and head of Growth Equity, Asia Pacific for KKR, said, “Musinsa has developed itself as a top consumer Internet platform in Korea and a differentiated marketplace by its ability to scale rising brands, enable the creator economy for fashion, engage and provide a high-quality e-commerce experience for customers. We see enormous opportunity for Musinsa to build on its leading position in a fast-growing K-fashion market that continues to shift online and expand globally on the back of K-culture’s explosive reach. We are excited to partner with the management team and look to leverage KKR’s global network, operational expertise, and deep technology experience to take Musinsa to its next phase of growth.”
Munil Han, CEO of Musinsa, said, “We are delighted to welcome global investors of KKR and Wellington’s caliber, which we see as a recognition of the quality of Musinsa’s platform, and the potential of the Korean online fashion market. With this latest investment, Musinsa looks to continue scaling our platform and creating new standards of success in the online and offline markets with domestic and foreign brands.”
