Mejuri secures $5M Series A led by UK’s Felix Capital

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By CPE News

CPE Media News (9/5/2018) – Mejuri, a direct-to-consumer fine jewelry brand, has announced the closing of a $5 million Series A round of financing led by London, UK based venture firm Felix Capital with participation of Real Ventures, Incite Ventures, BDC Capital Women in Technology Fund, and Dash Ventures.

Mejuri was founded by Noura Sakkijha and Maj Masad with the goal to create a brand for millennial women. Mejuri had previously raised $1 million in funding.

Mejuri intends to use new funding to continuously engage customers and micro-influencers to establish direct one-on-one conversations through social media, email, and SMS. This personal connection has garnered the brand a loyal community with repeat customers accounting for over 35% of monthly transactions. The brand has also seen tremendous growth on social media, approaching 300,000 organic and highly engaged Instagram followers.

With the Series A funding, Mejuri aims to further online and social media engagement strategy and connect with more customers in-person through physical stores. The company recently opened its first location in Toronto, plans to open the second one in New York City.

photo credit: Mejuri

News Release

Mejuri Closes Series A Financing to Continue Building the Fine Jewelry Brand of Tomorrow
Direct-to-consumer fine jewelry brand will use capital to fuel growth digitally and through physical stores

TORONTO, September 4, 2018 /PRNewswire/ —

Mejuri is a direct-to-consumer fine jewelry brand revolutionizing the way women purchase jewelry. This month, the brand closed a $5 million Series A financing round led by London-based venture firm Felix Capital. Real Ventures, Incite Ventures, BDC Capital Women in Technology Fund, and Dash Ventures also participated in the round.

Since launching, Mejuri has grown 400% year-over-year through organic marketing and a strong social strategy. The company focuses on keeping its product line fresh, having ongoing dialogues with customers, and creating a community that echoes Mejuri’s ethos of “Forgetting occasions and making luxury a habit.” The brand has sold 150,000 pieces of jewelry in the past year alone.

Launched in 2015, Mejuri was founded by Noura Sakkijha and Maj Masad with the goal to create a brand for millennial women. Prior to this round, Mejuri had only raised $1 million in funding.

“We’ve done a lot with little, and we consider this efficiency and attention to spend to be one of our biggest strengths,” says Co-Founder and CEO Noura Sakkijha. The brand attributes this efficiency to its efforts to understand the economics of the business early and investing in channels and strategies that added value to their community. “I am inspired by entrepreneurs like Katrina Lake, who took Stitch Fix to its initial public offering with only $40 million in funding. It’s a great example to help entrepreneurs realize that they can achieve substantial growth without seeking large amounts of capital prematurely.”

The company refreshes its collections regularly and pioneered the drop model in the traditional fine jewelry industry. Instead of large seasonal releases, Mejuri introduces new products contextualized with a new narrative every Monday. This 52-product-release model keeps Mejuri’s product mix fresh and current. The frequent drops also keep the company in constant communication with its community to challenge the long-established belief that fine jewelry is an occasional purchase.

Mejuri’s key strategy has been to continuously engage customers and micro-influencers to establish direct one-on-one conversations through social media, email, and SMS. This personal connection has garnered the brand a loyal community with repeat customers accounting for over 35% of monthly transactions. The brand has also seen tremendous growth on social media, approaching 300,000 organic and highly engaged Instagram followers.

With the Series A funding, Mejuri aims to further these relationships online and connect with more customers in-person.

“We’re thrilled to have more capital to extend our brand to physical stores over the next few quarters,” says Sakkijha. “We’ve recently opened our first location in Toronto, with the next one being planned in New York City, and have been excited to connect with our customers and have them experience the brand IRL. I’m looking forward to meeting more of our customers in person.”

From the onset, Mejuri invested heavily in every customer touchpoint. By building a creative agency in-house and focusing on customer experience, the company created a loyal and vocal community that shares its values. The Mejuri team, which is 80% women, is designing, marketing, and curating customer experiences to create the next generation fine jewelry brand for modern women.

“We believe Felix Capital’s focus on brand and customer experience aligns perfectly with our vision at Mejuri. We’re happy to have their experienced team on board, and to continue disrupting the category by building a thoughtful, community-focused brand experience,” says Co-Founder and COO Majed Masad.

Sasha Astafyeva, principal at Felix agrees, saying: “Mejuri is a brand we have been watching for some time – their mastery of the digital space has engendered their impressive success to date and we are very happy to be able to support them to take the next step in their growth. We are proud to have worked with the likes of Farfetch, The Business of Fashion and goop since their early days so have high hopes for Mejuri.”

About Mejuri

Mejuri is a digitally native brand founded on the belief that luxury should be accessible, fun, and part of every day. Their inspiration comes from their customers – real, smart, mindful women. Mejuri works with top jewelers, who commit to exceptional craftsmanship and ethical practices to produce quality pieces made of solid gold, sterling silver, diamonds, and semi precious stones. The company skips the middleman and sells directly to customers to provide fine jewelry at a fraction of the price of traditional retail. It’s their mission to have women embrace a daily dose of luxury.

Founded in 2015 in Toronto, Canada, the brand is millennial-izing fine jewelry with strong social strategies, direct relationships with customers, and catering to millennials who are informed about the products and brands with whom they shop.

Mejuri Co-Founder and CEO Noura Sakkijha, a former engineer with deep roots in fine jewelry, leveraged her learnings from the industry to create a next-generation jewelry brand. Sakkijha and her team are focused on breaking the barriers between millennials and what has been always thought of as an exclusive and occasional category.

About Felix Capital

Felix Capital is a London-based venture capital firm for the Creative Class, operating at the intersection of technology and creativity. Felix focuses on digital lifestyle, investing in emerging digital consumer brands and related enabling-technologies. The firm’s mission is to be a partner of choice for entrepreneurs with big ideas, and help them build strong brands that stand out and move the world forward.

Since its launch in 2015, Felix has raised over $300 million across several funds. Illustrative investments in Europe and North America include: Farfetch, an online marketplace for the fashion and luxury; goop, the lifestyle brand started by Gwyneth Paltrow in LA; The Business of Fashion, a media platform for fashion professionals; Papier, a personalised stationery integrated brand; Highsnobiety, an online community for style-conscious millennial men; Yoobic, a software solution for retailers; and Peloton, a fitness technology and subscription service.

Contact: Amanda Rosenhagen at Scott Ideas, +44-7734-482248

SOURCE Mejuri