Retail in Asia

In Trends

GRANA raises funds to advance its use of AI

GRANA raises funds to advances its use of AI

GRANA, one of Asia’s fastest growing direct-to-consumer and eCommerce apparel disruptors, announced that it has raised an undisclosed amount of growth capital venture debt financed by STI Financial Group – a Hong Kong-based an investment group that provides bespoke capital solutions.

SEE ALSO  : GRANA launches its first brand campaign

The funds will be used to fuel the company’s sustainable business growth, improve cash flow management and advance its use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to improve customer engagement and website functionality.

“We see GRANA as a progressive and disruptive fashion brand – making waves internationally through a talented management team that has brought about thoughtful branding, high quality product design and results-driven digital marketing strategy. We are excited to collaborate with such a promising and successful tech startup”, said Carmen Tam, ‎Associate Director at STI Financial Group.

As a digital native, GRANA has been able to leverage its customer data and analytics to optimise product design, eCommerce website efficiency, operations and digital marketing to successfully build the business year-on-year. With this growth funding, the company intends to use the finances to further fuel the business with less dilution of the current share capital.

Luke Grana, CEO & Founder at GRANA added, “We are fortunate to partner with STI Financial Group. Being a young company, it’s important that we don’t rely on raising more equity. Right now, it’s about fueling long-term business growth, expanding our market penetration in key markets and continue making high quality basics at disruptive prices for our customers”.

The partnership with STI Financial Group marks one of the firm’s plans to expand into the venture debt space to support the fragmented middle market companies in Asia.

“Venture debt is complimentary to multiple stages of financing and will gain momentum in Asia as an alternative capital solution in the coming years. Nonetheless, venture debt capital providers will remain highly selective in their credit underwriting process as companies suitable for such solutions are usually relatively asset light”, said Cyrus Wen, Partner at STI Financial Group.

SEE ALSO : Grana expands into Mainland China, opens store on Alibaba’s Tmall

To date, the three-year old startup has:

• Secured a total of US $16 million in funding
• One 18,000sqft global distribution centre where its 60 employees are based in Hong Kong
• Ships to 67 markets within 2 – 5 business days
• Opened 15 pop-up showroom experience across Hong Kong, Singapore, the U.S and Australia
• Built international recognition for its quality basics and worn by celebrities including Jessica Alba, Gigi Hadid, Jamie Chung and Lily Collins

In 2018, GRANA plans to expand its current collection of sustainable items and use its direct business approach to democratise the price of owning sustainable quality apparel for both men and women.