A growing Chinese women’s apparel retailer that is backed by eCommerce giant Tencent is looking to raise some significant capital before it debuts its U.S. IPO offering in 2016, Bloomberg reported.
Meilishuo.com, which means “Beauty Talk” in Chinese, is hoping to raise $300 million from investors as the company prepares itself to join the world of publicly traded companies in the U.S. sometime in the next year, according to an unnamed source who Bloomberg cited as familiar with the matter.
This information, which has not been publicly released by the company, is also said to be the last batch of funding for the company before its IPO price listing. Based on projections, two sources indicated to Bloomberg that the retailer could be worth $2.5 billion at the time of its public offering.
Meilishuo, the online marketplace that focuses on a young female audience, claims to have more than 100 million women as registered users, primarily between the ages of 18-35. The company was founded in 2009 by Xu Yirong and in November 2013 the company took its talents online and began growing its eCommerce side. This included a trading platform that featured thousands of sellers in the fashion market — including shoes, handbags and accessories. In 2015, the company reportedly aims to hit 15 billion yuan, which would be approximately three times the amount of the company’s transaction volume in 2014.
