Departing for the global fashion market with K brands

Musinsa devours fashion platforms... Acquires StyleShare & 29CM | 1 — Photo provided by Musinsa

The online fashion platform Musinsa (CEO Jo Man-ho) embarks on entering the global fashion market with domestic brands as a business strategy by signing a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with StyleShare (CEO Yoon Ja-young) and 29CM (Co-CEOs Yoon Ja-young, Park Jun-mo) and initiating the acquisition process.

The acquisition decision is driven by combining the core competencies held by both parties to secure competitiveness for the overseas market expansion of domestic brands. The acquisition will be carried out by Musinsa acquiring 100% of the shares of StyleShare and 29CM. The scale of acquisition is 300 billion won.

Having paved the way for the global expansion of domestic brands, Musinsa plans to further secure essential core competencies for uncovering brands that cater to a diverse customer base and building a global platform following this acquisition. StyleShare and 29CM are expected to make bigger attempts in the women's fashion and high-sensitivity lifestyle markets by utilizing Musinsa's brand investment and growth support infrastructure.

The two companies aim to challenge the global market based on their shared growth DNA of creating a new online fashion market based on community and content, and their differentiated service operational ability which has been the foundation of rapid growth.

Musinsa devours fashion platforms... Acquires StyleShare & 29CM | 2 — Photo by StyleShare

Even after the acquisition, Musinsa, StyleShare, and 29CM will maintain an independent management system to preserve their unique characteristics of each platform. The integrated strategy formulation and synergy creation will focus on the area of infrastructure for the growth support benefits of in-house brands and platform enhancement. Musinsa plans to speed up the development of a fulfillment center for building an integrated logistics system by expanding the target of its current brand mutual growth program to include brands housed in StyleShare and 29CM.

CEO Jo Man-ho of Musinsa stated, "Venturing into overseas markets is essential to revitalize the domestic brand fashion ecosystem and to provide customers with more diverse fashion content. This will be an opportunity for Musinsa, StyleShare, and 29CM in-house brands to grow into K brands loved not only in Korea but also around the world as a global fashion distribution platform."

CEO Yoon Ja-young of StyleShare and 29CM expressed, "I am pleased that the three services, which have created distinct fandoms by age and taste in the domestic fashion and lifestyle markets, will be able to move towards a larger market together with domestic brands by leveraging each other's strengths and know-how. We will grow by pursuing synergy as a global fashion commerce while maintaining the identity of each service and providing unchanged satisfaction to existing customers and brands."

Meanwhile, the online fashion store Musinsa (MUSINSA) is the leading online fashion platform in Korea with 8.4 million members and 6,000 brands as of April 2021. It has led the domestic fashion e-commerce market by surpassing 1.2 trillion won in annual transactions in 2020. In addition to offering a variety of fashion shopping services including global luxury brands, street, and designer brands, it also publishes an online and offline fashion magazine, MUSINSA MAGAZINE, delivering the latest fashion trends and information domestically and internationally, and develops the modern basic casual wear brand, musinsa standard.

In 2016, it launched the women's fashion brand store WUSINSA, growing into the largest brand fashion platform in Korea. Opened in June 2018, musinsa studio, a fashion-specialized shared office, supports the best space, infrastructure, and networking for fashion startups and emerging designers, leading the revitalization of the fashion industry ecosystem in South Korea. Musinsa Terrace, opened in September 2019 as Musinsa's first offline space and a fashion cultural complex connecting brands and customers, has established itself as a landmark in Hongdae where you can experience fashion trends and various cultural domains.