Last week online commerce and design powerhouse Fab was admitting, with some irony, that the design of its user experience had not been great, given that it required users to log-in before viewing items. With that requirement dumped, the stage is set for its next move: a full blown assault on the European market following its acquisition this year of Germany player Casacanda and most recently Llustre in the UK. The new ‘Fab Europe’ site opens today.
Thus, through acquisition and slicing off existing members in the region, Fab now claims it has 2 million members in Europe, who will now be able to browse a fully-targeted European site. The Europe team is also now on pace, says the company, to represent 30% of around $150M total. It also boasts almost 200 staff. In Germany at least, they will be up against the Samwer/Rocket Internet clone Westwing.de.
Perhaps most interestingly, Fab has moved its entire European operations to Berlin, including its former London staff.
CEO and cofounder Jason Goldberg told us that overall the site grew from 5 million to 7.5 million in the past 2.5 months. He also said they had membership 50% since July 1 this year.
With its Casacanda acquisition, Fab Europe started in February in German-language only, and only serving the German and Austrian markets. However, that was operating on the platform of its acquired entities. The new European site is fully on Fab’s Social Commerce Platform which is built around social sharing, targeting 26 countries in North America and the EU. Fab Europe will be brought onto Fab’s mobile apps in the next 2 weeks.
The company earlier this summer raised $105 million in funding at a reported $700 million valuation, bringing the total raised to $156 million.