Investment fund Catalyst Romania, administered by 3TS Capital, purchased a package of 10 percent of the online retailer elefant.ro, managed by Universal Online Promotion, the company and owned by Fribourg Investments, through capital increase, hotnews.ro informs.
Details on the value of the investment were not made public. According to Mihai Sfintescu, partner within 3TS Capital Partners, it is possible to set up another round of financing by the end of next year. While elefant.ro shareholders say that they think of a partial exit that might occur through a listing on the alternative stock exchange ATS within the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BVB).
For elefant.ro, 2015 will be a year of consolidation, driven toward sales growth in existing product lines, according to company’s officials. The online retailer has about 600,000 customers and the daily number of orders is around 3,500, the average order is EUR 20.
Also, in Romania, Catalyst invested in avocatnet.ro, Simartis Telecom and elefant.ro, another two investments will be announced next month, Sfintescu announced.
Initially developed as an online bookstore, elefant.ro saw a fast expansion accompanied by the broadening portfolio currently covering product categories such as books, media and e-books, toys, cosmetics and fragrances, clothing and footwear, accessories, home & deco and electronics.