CJ OnStyle Invests 4 Billion KRW in Luxury Platform and Health Functional Food Startups This Year

Strategic Investment to Secure Future Growth Engines
Indirect Investment of 13 Billion KRW in Venture Capital Fund

[Asia Economy Reporter Jo In-kyung] CJ OnStyle announced on the 14th that it actively participated in direct and indirect investments this year, including contributions to venture capital funds, establishing various deal sourcing and co-investment collaboration systems.

Including Timewise Investment, an investment company within the CJ Group, CJ OnStyle selected excellent external venture capital firms that align with its business strategy direction and possess related portfolios, contributing a total of 13 billion KRW. Based on the organic partnership system established with these venture capital firms, it also made direct investments totaling 4 billion KRW in companies related to luxury goods, health functional foods, and retail tech.

Notably, in May, CJ OnStyle invested in the luxury overseas direct purchase platform 'ATNY,' securing more than a 6% stake. On the 10th, it launched an exclusive ATNY section specializing in luxury overseas direct purchases on its online site and mobile app. Unlike other domestic luxury e-commerce companies that secure products through simple data collection (crawling) or attracting parallel importers, ATNY's strength lies in holding about 180,000 diverse products through direct inventory linkage (API). The 'ATNY Express' service also offers a differentiated overseas delivery system that allows customers to receive products within three days after purchase.

As luxury purchasing channels rapidly shift from offline to online, the company explained that through real-time linkage with ATNY, it can initially showcase various luxury products within CJ OnStyle and expects additional synergies such as joint direct brand purchases in the future.

Investment in 'Enrise' (formerly Seungmyung), a health functional food company based on an overseas OEM network, was also completed last month. Enrise is a distributor of health functional foods with brands such as 'Naturalize' and 'The Real,' holding a solid market share in notified product categories like Omega-3. CJ OnStyle participated as a strategic investor in the Enrise buy-out deal through strategic collaboration with Praxis PE and is expected to build cooperative relationships such as joint development of private brand products and TV sales to strengthen the health functional food category by leveraging Enrise's overseas OEM network.

Investment in the startup 'iDiction,' which possesses virtual size measurement technology, is also expected to be completed within the year. By applying iDiction's technology, which can measure individual body sizes from smartphone photos, to the fashion sector, CJ OnStyle can provide differentiated shopping experiences such as curation services recommending perfectly fitting clothing and 3D virtual fitting services. Furthermore, it plans to collaborate in various ways, including deriving the most suitable designs for customers when developing new private brand fashion products.

Sung Dong-hoon, Head of Strategic Planning at CJ OnStyle, said, "In a rapidly changing business environment, we made strategic investments in core categories to proactively secure future growth engines and continue flexible growth. Next year, we will more aggressively expand direct investments in premium living, jewelry, fashion, beauty brands, and commerce, and actively pursue indirect investments by discovering additional leading venture capital firms."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.