December 04, 2023

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[THE INVESTOR] Korea’s beauty startup Memebox announced on Aug. 20 that it has signed a partnership deal with US-based multi-brand cosmetics store operator Sephora.

LVMH-owned Sephora currently has over 2,300 online and offline outlets in 33 different countries, including Europe, US and China.

 
“Sephora highly evaluated Memebox’s potential to grow and compete in the global markets and decided to form a partnership with us,” a company official said in a statement. “By cooperating with Sephora, we will expand our presence in the US and also other global markets.”

Memebox’s attempt to aggressively expand its presence overseas started from June this year, when it launched an online commerce platform targeting US customers to sell its private label brands such as I Dew Care, Nooni and Pony Effect. Memebox and Sephora plan to launch a new cosmetics product line this fall as their first collaboration project.

Before launching the website, Memebox was focusing on gathering big data and reviews of cosmetics products created by beauty influencers. Currently it has around 5 million monthly users using the company’s platform.

Memebox is well known for successfully securing funds from Silicon Valley-based startup accelerator Y Combinator in 2013. The Korean startup has so far received funds worth around 114.6 billion won (US$102.54 million) from foreign and domestic investors.

By Song Seung-hyun (ssh@heraldcorp.com)