China’s Alibaba acquires 5% of Ably in 1st equity investment in Korean firm

Chinese online shopping giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. has invested 100 billion won ($71.4 million) in South Korea’s top women’s clothing app operator Ably Corp., securing a 5% stake to tap into the nation’s booming online fashion market.

The investment, Alibaba’s first equity investment in a Korean shopping app platform, will enable the Chinese firm to gain a bigger foothold in Korea. Alibaba-run platform AliExpress competes with local rivals such as Coupang Inc. and Gmarket Inc., as well as China’s Temu and Shein.

Ably said on Monday that through the deal it has been recognized as a unicorn, that is, a startup valued at $1 billion or more.

With the investment, Able's valuation has risen to around 3 trillion won – a threefold increase from January 2022 when it was valued at 900 billion won during its 67 billion won, pre-Series C round of fundraising.

Ably is the first Korean startup to achieve unicorn status this year, following Naver Corp.'s resale platform unit, Kream Corp., whose valuation reached 1 trillion won in December 2023 when it completed bridge round financing.

RISING K-FASHION

Ably Corp. operates the women’s styles commerce platform Ably, the men's fashion mall 4910 and Japan's fashion mall Amood.

The Korean online platform operator attributed its high valuation to the growing popularity of Korean fashion, or K-fashion, on the global stage and the company's vigorous support for the worldwide expansion of Korean sellers.

Ably also highlighted its user base's rapid growth and solid financial status. Its transaction volume rose to about 2 trillion won this year from 700 billion won in 2021.

Ably said it plans to seek additional investment of 100 billion won from Silicon Valley investors and overseas sovereign wealth funds.

"Despite the challenging investment climate, we successfully enhanced our corporate value and achieved unicorn status, reaffirming our business performance and growth potential,” said Ably Chief Executive Kang Seok-hoon.

AliExpress, the international online retail platform of Alibaba, has been in talks for an equity investment in Ably since early this year as it stepped up its overseas expansion amid the global push by younger Chinese rivals such as Shein and PDD Holdings Inc.’s Temu.

With more than 8 million monthly active users, Ably is Korea’s top women’s clothing online shopping mall operator.

It's also the No. 2 player among the country’s online shopping platforms, after the domestic e-commerce giant Coupang.

Ably reported its first operating profit of 3.3 billion won last year, swinging from a loss of 74.4 billion won in 2022, as sales soared 44% to 259.5 billion won.

Write to Joo-Wan Kim at kjwan@hankyung.com
In-Soo Nam edited this article.