Ventech has invested $3 Million in Russian fashion startup TrendsBrands, GoalEurope reported today. Trends Brands is a global online fashion retailer that offers over 10 000 branded items across womenswear, menswear, footwear, accessories, and jewellery, with approximately 1500 new product items being introduced each month. The company reportedly did $10 Million in revenue since its founding in June 2011, and has previously received $1 Million in funding from Kite Ventures, a VC firm which invested in Tradeshift, Zeptolab, SponsorPay, and Made.com, some of Russia’s biggest startups.
The French VC firm, which counts eYeka, Augure, Viadeo, and Withings among its investments, has long had an active investment arm outside of France, with nearly half of its investments coming out of China; however, in the past few years, they’ve begun to kick up an ear to Russian startups, so much so that Russian crunchbase RusBase has listed Ventech and their Russian investments.
In 2011, General Partner Alain Caffi gave an interview about the firm’s decisions to invest in Russia, in which he said:
I’m in Russia almost once a month to set up a local network. Outside France we always partner with local venture firms and so I’m in the process of building strong and trustworthy relationships with local colleagues. Apart from direct investments we also look at business and corporate developments that bring value to companies.
At the time the firm was looking to raise its 4th fund of 100 Million dollars, which it annoucned this past year. An article in Venturevillage about the new fund cited Russia as one of four primary targets on Ventech’s radar with the new fund – Brazil, India & China were also mentioned.