Dubai: Dubai-based Namshi, the online fashion retailer that recently completed two rounds of private equity funding, is set to expand into Lebanon and Jordan as its eyes sales of more than Dh100 million ($27 million) this year, a top company executive said.
The e-commerce website received $20 million in capital from JP Morgan Asset Management and Blakeney Management in September, and this week announced additional funding of an undisclosed sum from Summit Partners, Hosam Arab, founder and one of three managing directors at Namshi, told Zawya Dow Jones.
The extra cash will be used to expand into new markets and invest in delivery logistics and a new warehouse in Dubai, he added. “A lot of the funding will go towards growing the business, part of it will be customer acquisition and thirdly we are looking at new markets,” said Arab.
“We started with the UAE, we moved to the GCC and now we are looking at adding a few markets in the region. We are looking at Lebanon and Jordan in the short term.” Namshi currently delivers to the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain, and had an average of 100,000 daily unique visitors to its website in December last year, according to Arab. He said the online retailer would surpass Dh100 million in sales this year as visitors to the website had been growing at about 35 per cent per month in the past year.
Namshi sells 550 different brands such as Nike, Puma, Lacoste and Polo Ralph Lauren, and stocks more than 12,000 different products for women, men and children.
