Fashion-focused French e-commerce site Rad raises $3.3m to expand into the UK and Germany

Paris-based Rad, an e-commerce site that touts itself as a “discovery platform for cool fashion, art and design products”, has raised €2.5 million ($3.3 million) in a Series A investment round led by Index Ventures – which is a backer of other well-known e-commerce sites such as ASOS and Etsy.

Other partners in Rad’s investment round include angel investors Nicolas Santi-Weil – who will be joining the Rad board – and New York-based Vaizra Seed Fund.

Next in Rad’s pipeline is to launch in the UK and Germany. The company says it plans to invest in logistics, production and marketing to prepare for the upcoming rollout in these two markets and will also use the latest investment to expand its current team.

Besides selling products on its website, Rad also fosters collaborations with artists and designers to create “Rad” products.

Co-founder David Smadja says:

This investment will help us on our way to developing our brand… Our goal is for our members to create products with us on a massive scale, turning Rad into an incubator for young talent and designers.

Rad, which has close to 1 million members now, was launched just 11 months ago (in July last year) and is already on target to reach €15 million worth of revenue in its first fiscal year of operation. The company was self-financed.

The fashion e-commerce scene has been heating up recently, with German incubator Rocket Internet especially active. Rocket Internet-backed Lamoda, a fashion-focused e-commerce site in Russia, raised $130 million earlier this month, and last month Zalora, another site backed by the incubator, raised $100 million.

Image Credit: Andrew Cowie via AFP/Getty Images