Thai beauty platform Konvy raises Series A for international expansion

Founded 10 years ago, Konvy is now Thailand’s top beauty e-commerce platform. It plans to accelerate its omnichannel and international distribution with a new Series A of $10 million from Insignia Ventures Partners.

Konvy was launched in 2012 by Chinese entrepreneur QingGui Huang, who previously managed fashion e-commerce platforms in China. It now works with more than 1,000 brands, representing SKUs of more than 20,000. Its brand portfolio includes L’Oréal, Shiseido, Sulwhasoo, Eucerin and La Roche-Posay.

“Konvy had the advantage of starting in Thailand when there were no really significant e-commerce players there at the time,” Huang told TechCrunch. “We’ve since leveraged our first mover advantage in Thailand to become a leading e-commerce player in the market.”

Konvy’s goal is to help local and international beauty brands take advantage of two major trends. The first is that health and beauty purchases are a priority spending category for Thai consumers and the second is that Thailand sees high rates of e-commerce purchases and social media usage, meaning that young people in Thailand spend an average of about two hours and 55 minutes on social media each day.

Huang said he confirmed his assumptions about Thai spending on beauty products through conversations with brands, and that drove his desire to start Konvy.

“This opportunity of health and beauty being a priority spending category for Thai consumers is a function of both demand and supply circumstances favoring this consumer behavior over the past decades,” he said. “On the supply side, Thailand has been a manufacturing hub for a lot of international brands for more than 40 years. This has spawned as well a thriving local industry. On the demand side, we see that Thai consumers are plugged into this mindset of ‘upgrades’ when it comes to health and beauty, that is to say, it’s not just about accessing such products but actually looking for the best products and high willingness to spend on the latest trends.”

Konvy taps into the high rate of social media usage by developing a feedback loop, where engagements on its partner brands’ not only helps Konvy’s existing portfolio, but also helps more brands in the future. For example, as more Gen Z consumers bought products they saw on TikTok during the pandemic, Konvy made itself more present on that channel.

In a statement, Insignia Ventures Partners founding managing partner Yinglan Tan said, “While there may be stronger competitors from horizontal marketplaces in the future, we believe Konvy is best positioned to be the market leader in the online beauty segment given its long-standing brand equity, brand-centric and community-led approach.”