Fashion.me May Become the “Facebook of Fashion” Thanks to Intel?!
Since writing this article, Fashion.ME has ceased to operate. This post remains as part of their legacy. However, you can read our story about a similar .MEr here.
Intel Capital, the investment arm of one of the world’s biggest chip makers, has invested an undisclosed sum into Fashion.me, a 3-year old niche social network with over 1,000,000 users whose founder, Renato Steinberg, Vuksan interviewed at Techcrunch Disrupt.
It was actually Techcrunch Disrupt when Steinberg first crossed paths, according to iG’s Diego Remus. Fashion.me is not the only project in this investment batch, with invite-only luxury buying club Coquelux also getting funding. Although both the Brazilian Exame and The Next Web wrote about the deals – we don’t know any of their terms. What we do know is that Steinberg wants to use the investment to help Fashion.me go global.
This is by no means Intel Capital’s first investment in the region. It started investing in Brazil specifically in 1999., and the number of supported startups on the continent has grown to 40. While we may not know how much capital Fashion.me has gotten, Intel Capital has invested over $75 million in Brazilian startups alone.
From Brazil to the world
Fashion.me is 1 of 5 startups that Intel Capital plans to support. Fashion.me plans, as a global project, to give fans a dedicated place to discuss the latest trends without the noise of other, more general, social networks such as Facebook. Interestingly, it was only recently that the biggest social network in the world overtook Google’s Orkut in the country.
As Steinberg shared for the official .Me blog, Fashion.me’s plans for global “domination” are built upon a network for “normal” people to talk about fashion – not brands, not celebrities – which is one of the reasons they chose the .me domain name for their brand.
With the right brand and now the right investment, Fashion.me’s “only” challenge is to get users as engaged worldwide as they were in Brazil! Good luck!
