ONLINE eyewear marketplace GlassesGroupGlobal has secured a $3-million funding from a group of angel investors, including the cofounder of online video-communication platform Skype, and venture capitalist (VC) firm Nova Founders Capital
Nova Founders Capital, the VC founded by Rocket Internet proponents, announced the Series A round of fund-raising earlier this week with another VC, Caixa Capital, and angel investors, including Uwe Kolb, Siegfried Drueker and Skype founder Toivo Annus.
“The investment is a tremendous support and signal of confidence in our mission to innovate the traditional eyewear space and provide consumers better access to affordable quality eyewear,” Christopher Strauch, founder and CEO of GlassesGroupGlobal, said in a statement.
The online eyewear platform is aiming to cut a share of what it sees as a growing eyewear market in the Asia Pacific and has, most recently, launched operations in Europe, leveraging its existing strong distribution platform and supplier relationships.
The online market is present in 14 markets, and is known under the brands of GlassesOnline, GetGlasses, Glasses and Glasses&Co. GlassesGroupGlobal counts Ray-Ban, Oakley, Gucci, Prada and Italia Independent as partner brands.
GlassesGroupGlobal sites are currently operating in Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, Australia and New Zealand, and has most recently expanded to Europe.