Novelship, a Singapore-based sneaker and streetwear marketplace, has raised $10 million in a Series A funding round led by GSR Ventures and East Ventures, the company announced on Wednesday.
The round, which was joined by Singapore-based K3 Ventures and iGlobe Partners, brings Novelship’s total funding to $12.4 million to date.
The startup plans to use the funding to explore metaverse integration and brand partnership. It has already introduced cryptocurrency as an alternative payment option.
Introducing cryptocurrency as a payment method has allowed Novelship to tap into a high-value customer pool, increasing the average order value per customer. Over $200,000 worth of sneakers has been bought in digital tokens so far, the company claimed.
Novelship is currently present in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand, and Taiwan with plans to cover more areas in the APAC region.
Richard Xia, Novelship’s CEO, said the sneaker and streetwear market has huge potential globally given the appetite from consumers born in the late 1990s to mid-2000s. The sneaker and streetwear market in APAC has reached $33 billion following a growth spurt during the pandemic, the company estimates.
“Street culture is one of the rare opportunities in retail that has a global community of loyalists and we intend to capitalise on this to fast-track expansion,” Xia added in the statement.
“There is a fast-growing need for personalised expressions from Gen Z and millennial consumers in Asia. We believe that Novelship is creating a unique platform that can potentially be the one-stop marketplace to fulfil their emotional needs, in the physical and the virtual world. We are delighted to support Richard and his team at Novelship,” said Jefferson Chen, GSR Ventures partner.
GSR Ventures, whose focus has been on early-stage tech companies in customer platforms and healthcare technology, has been active in the region. In November last year, it joined Singapore-based e-scooter rental firm Neuron Mobility’s $30 million funding round.
East Ventures has also been busy investing, announcing investments in Indonesian fintech Pebble, Indonesian education technology startup MySkill, as well as launching Urban Gateway Fund to focus on investing in transportation, artificial intelligence, and smart city tech.