We are very excited to announce that Sophia and the Nasty Gal team have agreed to partner with Index to build the next stage of what is already an incredibly successful startup.
For those of you who don't know about Nasty Gal, it is one of the fastest growing fashion etailers out there. Nasty Gal is great illustration of what happens when you marry ambition and vision with the need to be scrappy and resourceful to build your business. Not only does Nasty Gal have incredibly dedicated customers and users, but what's extraordinary is that Sophia never raised a cent to build this business. From the earliest days as a powerseller on eBay, Sophia built Nasty Gal items by item and sale by sale into a profitable, scalable business.
We believe that some of the most successful e-commerce companies are businesses in-of-themselves; businesses that don't depend on business model innovations like a flash sale, a daily deal, or a subscription model or are reliant on Google for traffic. Don't get me wrong, good businesses can be built through business model innovations, but business models metaphors are easier to replicate.
Very few companies can build a strong e-tailing business based purely on the quality of the supply and the online experience: that's what we see in Nasty Gal and what we saw at Net-a-Porter and ASOS. Sophia and the team have built an incredible following of loyal customers and fans based on having married unique selection with a great service and attitude. They have been leveraging sites like MySpace and Facebook out of necessity as their only marketing channel and wow has it paid off!
We're thrilled to be investors and feel privileged to have been selected to build Nasty Gal to the next level.