Meila, an online beauty community formerly known as Meila Makeup (not official translation), announced US$20 million of Series B financing led by Morningside Ventures with participation of GSR Ventures, IDG, and Yunqi Ventures. This round is received only two months after the startup raised Series A funding from IDG this May.
Started as beauty community app for expert makeup and skincare product tips, Meila is now expanding businesses to offer reviews on manicure, hairdressing and clothing matching skills. As an app dedicated to female users, Meila tries to present the premium contents contributed by pop stars, fashion experts and users differently.
In the latest update released this May, Meila gives more priority to picture illustration which is more direct and easy for users to understand. Moreover, users’ comments concerning a certain part of the posts will be displayed under corresponding paragraphs, enabling better interaction between users and the contents.
Meila also has a web-based site, but its app is getting more traction with more than 40 million registered users and nearly 1 million daily active users so far. Apparently, the dominant users of Meila are females (15 to 25 years old), but the company introduced that around 1% of their users are male.
Meila will commercialize its service by bringing traffic to other e-commerce businesses, like Mogujie, Taobao, Tmall. The manicure business is directed to on-demand service Helijia. But the company said it will not tap O2O sector in the future.
The funding will be used in marketing, branding and team construction, according to the firm. Meila now has 60 employees, operating from Shenzhen, Beijing and Guangzhou.
image credit: Meila