LVMH leads new investment into luxury platform Lyst

Dive Brief:

French luxury conglomerate LVMH led a new round of investments in fashion search platform Lyst, according to a Lyst press release emailed to Retail Dive.
The size of the investment and the round weren't disclosed. LVMH's injection was less than $60 million, according to the Financial Times, citing an unnamed source.
This investment goes toward continued international expansion and to expanding Lyst's teams in London and New York. As part of the deal, LVMH Chief Digital Officer Ian Rogers will join Lyst's board.

Dive Insight:

This latest vote of confidence from LVMH follows an investment led by LVMH's controlling investor Groupe Arnault three years ago. Since then London-based Lyst has become profitable and has seen revenues grow over 400%, according to the release. Lyst's data science team works on machine learning, computer vision, AI and neural network techniques to power its search and personalization algorithms. Last year, the platform provided enhanced search services to more than 70 million fashion shoppers, the company said.

The company's quarterly Lyst Index ranking top fashion brands has become an industry benchmark, and the new funding will also go toward building the company's data as well as its brand.

Lyst, like Farfetched (also out of London) and others, aggregates retailers for customers, making it easy to browse and compare prices, and Lyst also enables customers to buy through a single cart. The app has a stable of 12,000 upscale brands and retailers including Fendi, Gucci, Net-a-Porter, Farfetch and SSENSE. Last year shoppers from over 120 countries used Lyst, the company said.

LVMH's interest in the startup continues the French retail giant's focus on digital sales. "E-commerce now represents multi-billion Euro revenue and explosive growth for LVMH Maisons," Rogers said in a statement. "As we continue to invest across the full spectrum of the online luxury experience, Lyst's vision for a seamless fashion search and discovery destination, coupled with its exceptional growth potential, provides us with a unique opportunity."

Rogers, by the way, surprised many three years ago when he jumped to LVMH from his post leading streaming services at Apple. Luxury retail in general had been behind in developing e-commerce operations, even as research showed that web sales could make up to 18% of luxury sales by 2025. But LVMH more recently has moved assertively to develop its e-commerce chops.