Indonesian startup Raena announced that it has raised $1.82 million in seed funding. The startup company helps social media influencers market their own e-commerce brands. Tech Crunch reported that this seed funding round was led by Beenext, along with other investors Beenos, the personal offices of Shailesh Rao, Strive, TPG Growth, and Sanjay Nath of Blume Ventures.
The US-based Revolve Group and fellow Asian startup Ruhnn Holding are the closest examples to Raena's line of business. Raena helps influencers gain the resources with which to market products using their own branding. The company launched two months ago, with an initial focus on the Southeast Asian market. So far, seven influencers (with a total following of 12 million) have sought the startup's help in setting up their businesses.
The company was founded by CEO Sreejita Deb, who previously worked in companies like Amazon, Google, and InMobi. Raena started out as a seller of Japanese and Korean beauty brands. According to Deb, the company started working with influencers after their initial marketing efforts. The Indonesian market responded well to their products despite the premium prices and little to no local brand recognition.
The initial brands that Raena introduced to the public were Kylie Cosmetics and HUDA Beauty. These were welcomed by the public, according to Deal Street Asia. This success encouraged them to explore the influencer marketing industry. It was-as Deb would say-an opportunity to build an underlying infrastructure of capital, suppliers, operations, content and marketing best practices.
Raena is one of the early investors in companies like Bukalapak and BerryBenka. They said that the rising trend of Social Commerce in the Southeast Asian regions and India was hard to ignore. They also noticed that these markets were under-penetrated by global CPG brands, and the current competition is moving "at a very lethargic pace."
Nikhil Kapur of Strive said that Raena is positioned to capture the market by building social-first brands, which will be marketed by top influencers. They also expressed excitement at the opportunity to be able to work with Sreejita Deb again.
They have studied social media very closely, and have found that Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Thailand have some of the highest social media penetration rates globally. This also means that they will be able to market into those countries effectively, although for now, social media influencers residing here haven't been able to turn their follower base into a market base.
