Beauty Brand Y.O.U Completed a Series C Round of Funding of $40 Million

Y.O.U, a Southeast Asian beauty brand, announced the completion of a $40 million Series C round of funding bringing the total amount of financing to $70 million to date. Y.O.U currently covered international market such as the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand and others with nearly 40,000 offline channel locations in the layout market.

Y.O.U, a Southeast Asian beauty brand, announced the completion of a $40 million Series C financing round led by Hidden Hills Capital and followed by SIG, GaoRong Capital, ATMCapital, eWTPArabiaCapital and M31 Capital with GaoRong Capital and ATMCapital as sequential participants and TCC Capital as the exclusive financial advisor.

Up to now, Y.O.U has raised a total of $70 million. It is understood that this round of funding will be mainly used for Y.O.U's channel store expansion in overseas emerging markets, product R&D investment, global supply chain layout and team talent expansion and upgrade.

Y.O.U is a Southeast Asian all-in-one brand mainly for colored makeup and skincare established in Indonesia at the end of 2018. The current market has covered the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, etc., In the layout of the market, it has nearly 40,000 offline channel stores. According to the introduction, Y.O.U has launched a series of products such as skin-care foundation and anti-aging essence for the market.

Talking about the reason of choosing Southeast Asia as the targeted market, the founder team said: "Different countries are subject to their own economic level and the brand is at different stages of development compared with the high GDP per capita market in China and the United States, the consumption power of users in Southeast Asia market is at the stage of pursuing quality brands. At the same time, the decentralization of media has enhanced users' selection standards and requirements for products. The Southeast Asian market, especially the largest single market Indonesia, has a high barrier to entry in terms of channels and overseas superior products cannot enter quickly, which provides an excellent opportunity for the rise of a new generation of brands with strong channel capabilities and localization."

Channel is one of Y.O.U's strengths and it is understood that the company's founding team comes from the OPPO system and has full-chain retail experience in Southeast Asia. In the three years since its establishment, Y.O.U has completed a multi-channel layout including beauty franchise stores, shopping malls, department stores, convenience stores and major e-commerce platforms.

At the same time, through a series of actions such as upgrading the image of terminal stores and counters and systematic training of shoppers, Y.O.U has been continuously recognized by distributors and channels. In 2019, Y.O.U won the Best New Brand Award of Guardian in Manning, Indonesia and won two consecutive Guardian Awards for the fastest growing brand in terms of sales. In 2020, it won the top 1 in both list of colored cosmetics and skincare in Shopee. In 2021, Y.O.U will become one of the top 10 most popular local beauty and skincare brands in Indonesia by Wolipop, a high-end women's fashion media.

In terms of product research and development, Y.O.U focuses on developing products that are suitable for the skin qualities of Southeast Asian people and are widely welcomed by local consumers. In the 2021 HTC Consumer Product Survey, Y.O.U anti-aging essence won the most popular anti-aging essence of the year in Indonesia. In the same year, it set a new record for the sales of its live streaming on TikTok Indonesia during the promotional campaign on December 12. In addition, Y.O.U's multiple products won the Beauty of the Year 2021 Award from Indonesia's e-commerce platform Tokopedia.

In terms of supply chain, compared with other Southeast Asian local beauty brands, Y.O.U relies on Chinese beauty supply chain which has more advantages in product quality, iteration speed and cost level.

Talking about future strategic planning, the company said that activating the overall development of the beauty industry in emerging markets and achieving industrial iteration and upgrading will be the next goal of Y.O.U.