Len Blavatnik’s Access Industries Funds GlossyBox

Beauty products mail order company Glossybox, which was launched, and is majority-owned (57.5 percent), by the Samwer brothers’ Rocket Internet, has attracted a round of funding from Len Blavatnik’s Access Industries in exchange for a 7 percent equity stake. Yet to be launched in Russia, the company numbers Kinnevik (24 percent) and Holtzbrinck Ventures (7 percent) among its other stakeholders.

Glossybox (www.glossybox.co.uk)

Glossybox is a subscriber based mail order type service that sends customers a box full of beauty product samples for EUR 10 per month. The company’s objective is to provide customers with an array of new as well as proven products; it assures clients that it will lead them by the hand through the “cosmetic jungle” so they don’t end up spending money on products that they may not like. Also available for men, the service is similar to BirchBox operating in the U.S., and the French version – JolieBox. Glossybox already set foot in France, Germany, South Korea, Australia, Spain, Italy, Brazil and Spain and rumored to enter the Russian beauty market.

Brief Overview:  Birchbox Clones

Glossybox already has stiff competition from other similar service companies like JolieBox of Paris. Tied up with Boudoir Privé of the UK, JolieBox is backed up by Alven Capital. Another competitor is the American company BirchBox, which last year raised a USD 10.5 million series A round of funding headed by Accel Partners. The competition in Europe is especially strong in Turkey. The popular LilaKutu cosmetics recommendation platform was launched jointly by Internet Holding and Ottoman Ventures and it has an 18-million-strong female customer base. LuxyBox is also making a move into the Turkish market; the company lists Çağlar Erol as investor-cum-founder, among others. VanilyaClub, which already has a presence in Turkey, already made a mark in the industry by receiving 15,000 invitation requests prior to its official launch in Turkey on October 1, 2011.