{"id":39113,"date":"2023-10-20T15:00:52","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/sydney-entrepreneur-scores-13-million-investment-from-alibaba-after-building-a-startup-with-150000-from-past-businesses-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:00:52","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:00:52","slug":"sydney-entrepreneur-scores-13-million-investment-from-alibaba-after-building-a-startup-with-150000-from-past-businesses-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/sydney-entrepreneur-scores-13-million-investment-from-alibaba-after-building-a-startup-with-150000-from-past-businesses-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Sydney entrepreneur scores $13 million investment from Alibaba after building a startup with $150,000 from past businesses – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A Sydney entrepreneur that relocated to Hong Kong to launch a new ecommerce startup with $150,000 leftover from past busineses has closed a $13 million ($US10 million) funding round led by online retail giant Alibaba.<\/p>\n

GRANA founder Luke Grana launched the direct-to-consumer ecommerce fashion retailer in October 2014 after moving to Hong Kong with $150,000 in savings from previous businesses in Australia.<\/p>\n

The startup has since enjoyed continual 15% month-on-month sales growth and now ships to 12 countries around the world.<\/p>\n

The large Series A round was led by the Alibaba Group under the Hong Kong Entrepreneurs Fund, along with existing investors Golden Gate Ventures and MindWorks Ventures.<\/p>\n

The cash injection will be used to help the startup move into a new 18,000 square-foot warehouse in Hong Kong, along with plans to double the GRANA team to 100 staff and prepare to launch into the USA, China, Japan and South Korea next year.<\/p>\n

A lucrative partner<\/h3>\n

Having Alibaba on board as a partner will help with all of these projects, Grana says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re really excited to have them as the lead investor,\u201d Grana tells StartupSmart<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe now get their ecommerce and technical advice on logistics and warehousing, and our China market entry.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a really exciting opportunity for us. This will make GRANA sustainable and will give us a lot of learnings and insights.\u201d<\/p>\n

Grana says discussions with the ecommerce giant began six months ago, and the potential of a partnership was immediately evident.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom day one there was a lot of intent on both sides,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re still a minority investor and don\u2019t have any veto right. The founding team still has control.\u201d<\/p>\n

GRANA has the potential to be a big player in the online fashion industry, Hong Kong Entrepreneurs Fund executive director Cindy Chow says.<\/p>\n

\u201cGRANA has provided itself as an international ecommerce brand that uses a data-driven approach to optimise its business offering and create an excellent customer experience,\u201d Chow says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have a creative and energetic business culture which really strongly resonates across their omin-channel and is indicative through their rapid growth.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a very promising startup and we are looking forward to building a long-term partnership.\u201d<\/p>\n

The startup is set to launch in the US, and will be establishing a pop-up showroom in New York along with a local team on the ground in the city.<\/p>\n

Lessons from the past<\/h3>\n

Grana launched the company with Pieter Paul Wittgen in October 2014 with $150,000 in capital from previous businesses.<\/p>\n

Grana, now 32 years old, has run four other businesses, and says he has taken many lessons from these previous ventures that have helped make his latest one a success.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m still very much learning \u2013 there are some good lessons from the past,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou need to hire really strong team members that don\u2019t necessarily have the perfect skillset but have a similar culture.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou need to be creating an amazing culture within the team \u2013 that\u2019s the biggest lesson for me and something we\u2019ve done really well at GRANA. We have a really strong startup mentality and startup business culture, and that\u2019s really important.\u201d<\/p>\n

He says that product is key, above all else.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll only ever be as good as our product quality,\u201d Grana says.<\/p>\n

\u201cA really big focus of our business is finding the world\u2019s best fabrics. All of our products are of a really high quality and that\u2019s done really well for the business.\u201d<\/p>\n

The entrepreneur decided to base GRANA out of Hong Kong due to the cost of shipping in Australia and logistics, but says the first year was a struggle.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first year was quite challenging, especially with moving away from my family and friends,\u201d Grana says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just me for the first year with $150,000 in savings from previous businesses. I spent a lot of that on getting this business too. Raising the first seed round was really important to bring on key team members and get to that beta launch.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe challenge was making sure that I could continue growing the business with the capital under I had proved the concept to raise the first round.\u201d<\/p>\n

After these initial challenges, Grana says Hong Kong has proved to be a great city to build a business in, and he advises other Aussie entrepreneurs to consider it when looking to relocate.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d encourage other entrepreneurs to look at Hong Kong \u2013 it\u2019s a really great place to build a build a business,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cDoing business here is actually quite easy and we\u2019ve been able to raise capital and increase sales every month.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe now have more opportunities and potential as a business, and that\u2019s a testament to Hong Kong and the team we have. It\u2019s a very exciting journey and now we can really increase sales and keep making customers happy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Follow StartupSmart on<\/em>\u00a0Facebook<\/a>,<\/em>\u00a0Twitter<\/a>,\u00a0LinkedIn<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Sydney entrepreneur that relocated to Hong Kong to launch a new ecommerce startup with $150,000 leftover from past busineses<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61425,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39113"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39113"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39113\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}