Billion Dollar Unicorns: Privalia Dominates the Latin America Markets

According to a Forrester Research report published earlier this year, the Latin American eCommerce market is led by Brazil where the B2C ecommerce sales are projected to grow from $17.8 billion in 2014 to $40.8 billion in 2019. The number of online buyers in Brazil is expected to increase from 33.5 million in 2014 to 61.8 million in 2019. Argentina is the second largest market where ecommerce sales are projected to grow from $3.4 billion in 2014 to $8.3 million in 2019 with online consumers growing from 12.6 million in 2014 to 7.8 million in 2014. Mexico is the third largest market and is projected to grow from $2.8 billion last year to $6.7 billion in 2019. Billion Dollar Unicorn club member Privalia is counting on this Latin American market growth.

Privalia’s Offerings

Barcelona, Spain-based Privalia was founded in 2006 by Jose Manuel Villanueva, Bruno Coffe, and Lucas Carne. The e-commerce website focuses on providing their customers with access to fashion and household products including clothing and accessories for men, women, and children and home and décor products.

Privalia launches personalized, branded product campaigns that last from 3-5 days and allow consumers to purchase these products at discounts of as much as 70%. They also offer products from smaller boutiques at special discount prices for a limited period. Consumers can sign up to their website for free and receive daily emails that highlight these deals. They sell products from brands like L’Oreal Professionel, Fred Perry, McGregor, Dr. Scholl, Trollkids, Kayoom, La Morena, and Mr. Fox to over 18 million registered users.

The company currently operates in Spain, Italy, Brazil, Mexico, and Germany. More than 75% of their sales are derived from markets outside of Spain with Brazil being their largest market. They claim to hold the leading market share in all of these markets.

Privalia’s Financials

Privalia’s detailed financials are not known. According to market reports, they reported revenues growing over 90% to €320 million (~$351 million) in 2011. Revenues increased to €422 million (~$543.5 million) in 2012. Subsequent financials are not known, but the company was expecting to turn profitable in 2013.

They have been venture funded so far with $501.6 million in funding from Sofina, Cabiedes & Partners, Insight Venture Partners, General Atlantic, Highland Capital Partners, and Index Ventures. Their last round of funding was held in 2013 when they raised €25 million (~$27.5 million) in a round led by Sofina at an undisclosed valuation. Privalia plans to use those funds for continued expansion in the Latin American markets. Privalia’s valuation is not known, and their recent revenue or profitability are also not known. We don’t really know whether this Unicorn will eventually thrive or implode in the public market.

More investigation and analysis of Unicorn companies can be found in my latest Entrepreneur Journeys book, Billion Dollar Unicorns. The term Unicorn was coined in a TechCrunch article by Aileen Lee of Cowboy Ventures.

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Photo: Tomais Ashdene/Flickr.com.