K-fashion platform Ably secures W100b funding from Alibaba

Ably Corporation, operator of women’s fashion e-commerce platform Ably, announced on Monday that it has secured its first global capital investment of 100 billion won ($75 million) from China’s Alibaba Group.

This marks Alibaba's first stake acquisition in a Korean e-commerce platform, with the group reportedly obtaining some 5 percent of Ably's shares.

Ably's valuation has tripled in three years, compared to 900 billion won during its pre-Series C funding round in January 2022, where it raised 67 billion won.

"Despite the challenging investment climate, we successfully enhanced our corporate value to become a unicorn, reaffirming our business performance and growth potential," said Ably's CEO Kang Seok-hoon. "We aim to strengthen our leadership in recommendation-driven style commerce by leveraging our big data technology, while continuing to enhance our competitiveness in global markets."

Meanwhile, the industry views the investment as a stepping stone for China's e-commerce to deepen its presence in Korea.

Alibaba's global e-commerce platform, AliExpress, has already established a foothold in the Korean market and continues to expand, despite ongoing consumer concerns about product reliability.

"Alibaba's investment is a strategic and efficient way to enhance its understanding of Korean consumer preferences," an official from a local fashion platform said on condition of anonymity. "With Ably also targeting a broader Asian audience with new platforms like Amood, this provides Alibaba an opportunity to potentially benchmark against K-fashion industry,"

Last year, Ably posted 259.5 billion won in sales and 3.3 billion won in operating profits, marking its first annual surplus. Its monthly active users reached 8.8 million last month, according to analytics firm WiseApp.

Building on the investment, Ably plans to seek additional funding of 100 billion won from US Silicon Valley investors and overseas sovereign wealth funds.