<article>Indonesian venture <a style="color: #000080;" href="http://www.vipplaza.com/">VIP Plaza</a>, a fashion flash sales site, announced on Tuesday, Jan 27 2015, that it had raised a series A round of involving an undisclosed amount of funding from Yahoo Japan Capital (<a style="color: #000080;" href="http://yj-capital.co.jp/">YJ Capital</a>), a venture subsidiary of Yahoo Japan.</article>

Indonesian venture <a style="color: #000080;" href="http://www.vipplaza.com/">VIP Plaza</a>, a fashion flash sales site, announced on Tuesday, Jan 27 2015, that it had raised a series A round of involving an undisclosed amount of funding from Yahoo Japan Capital (<a style="color: #000080;" href="http://yj-capital.co.jp/">YJ Capital</a>), a venture subsidiary of Yahoo Japan.
Indonesia’s “Negative Investments List” – a set of rules that blocks or limits foreign investment in specified local industries that includes e-commerce – doesn&#8217;t apply to VIP Plaza due to being a marketplace portal, that doesn&#8217;t hold stock of its goods.
Using this loophole, SoftBank and Sequoia Capital funded Tokopedia to the tune of US$100 million last year. That VIP Plaza is registered and headquartered in Singapore, not Jakarta, also enables greater freedom in fundraising for the firm.
Also read:  <a href="http://www.dealstreetasia.com/stories/indonesias-takopediaa-raises-100m-from-softbank-sequoia/">Indonesia’s Tokopedia raises $100m from Softbank, Sequoia</a>
This marks YJ Capital’s first investment in Indonesia, marking a trend of Japanese capital flowing into ASEAN markets and distinguishing Japan as the most aggressive foreign investor in Indonesia and the Southeast Asia region.
Tesong Kim, CEO and co-founder of VIP Plaza, explained that the most recent funding round will support further marketing operations and expansions across Indonesia. Recently, they opened an office in Malaysia, as part of global expansion efforts.
<h3>Overseas Expansion &amp; Future Developments</h3>
VIP Plaza’s first expansion market is Malaysia, given its relative maturity, language convergence, modestly large domestic market and cultural similarities to Indonesia. This made it a logical place for expansion. Kim explained “We are going to expand to all the large markets in Southeast Asia in a few years. By our unique concept, we will be the number one online discount mall for branded fashion and lifestyle products in the region.”
Starting a new fashion brand sales every morning at 10am,  the flash sale strategy of VIP Plaza has attracted a critical mass of daily visitors from Indonesia, resulting in a 70 percent return visit rate for the site.
By selling a significant volume of their inventories,  they&#8217;ve also increased their appeal to brands  by virtue of their ability to generate a large volume of sales, coupled with the inherent marketing and brand development involved in flash sales. As of 2015, 400 international and domestic brands have joined VIP Plaza, according to Kim.
Southeast Asia’s growing middle-class has increasing purchasing power, coupled with rising smartphone penetration across regional markets. These two facts present a compelling advantage that VIP Plaza is capitalising upon. While claiming 3.5 million impressions per month, the number of active customers VIP Plaza currently serves, as well as revenue details , are hard to discern,
With 80 percent of transactions made on mobile devices, it increasingly looks like VIP Plaza will be focusing on developing the mobile aspect of its flash sales strategy, as well as its workforce.
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Indonesia's VIP Plaza snags Series A funding from YJ Capital

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Indonesia's VIP Plaza snags Series A funding from YJ Capital

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