Asian online retailer Zalora gets $112 million in new funding

BERLIN (Reuters) - Zalora, an online fashion start-up in Southeast Asia, has raised $112 million (68 million pounds) in new capital from investors including billionaire Leonard Blavatnik's Access Industries and U.S. asset management firm Scopia Capital Management.

Zalora was set up by Berlin-based Rocket Internet, the German venture capital group behind Europe's No. 1 online fashion retailer Zalando as well as numerous emerging market Amazon clones like Jumia in Africa and Linio in Latin America.

It said in a statement made exclusively available to Reuters that the capital is the largest single investment ever made into a Southeast Asian online fashion retailer, breaking its own record set in May with a $100 million funding round.

"The new capital will support Zalora Group's efforts to scale up operations and gain an even stronger foothold throughout South-East Asia and Australia, serving 600 million potential online shopping customers," the statement said.

American industrialist Blavatnik, who owns Access Industries, led a $130 million round of financing in June for Russian online fashion retailer Lamoda, also a Rocket start-up.

Zalora was launched in early 2012 and now sells about 500 brands in Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Brunei and the Philippines, setting up local warehouses in each market to speed delivery.

Founder Harry Markl told Reuters last month e-commerce should eventually take the same kind of market share in fashion as in Europe or the United States, growing to account for 15 percent of Southeast Asia's 50 billion euro fashion market, from just 1 percent now.

Zalora, whose other investors include JPMorgan, Summit Partners and German retail group Tengelmann, has not published any sales figures, but says all its websites have about 18 million unique visits a month.

(Reporting by Emma Thomasson; Editing by Louise Ireland)