East Ventures on Instagram: "@sociolla ’s first meeting request came in on January 14th, 2015. John Marco Rasjid, a long time friend of East Ventures, said he was starting something new. . John and his co-founder, Christopher Madiam, met our Managing Partner Willson Cuaca at Sopra Ristorante, Pacific Place. To Willson, there was nothing special about their pitch that day, since he neither used cosmetic nor was familiar with Indonesia’s beauty industry. However, Willson was still interested with their passion and their strong drive to start the venture. . John's past experience from banking meant that he had to leave his comfort zone for starting Sociolla. For Christopher, he was involved in his family business in canned fish industry. The other co-founder, Chrisanti Indiana, just got back to Indonesia from working as graphic designer in Sydney, Australia. . This was unprecedented. Fish and cosmetic, could you see any link? Willson did not at that time, but it still got him excited. . Two weeks later, we signed off the termsheet. . Fast forward to today, Sociolla has become the leading Indonesian ecommerce platform dedicated to beauty and personal care products. In 2018, its gross merchandise value (GMV) grew by approximately 7 times year-on-year, and it expects to grow by at least 4 times this year. Its media site @beautyjournal had a total of 20 million unique visitors in 2018. . Its key strategies to branched out into becoming the sole Indonesian distributor for a number of beauty brands and pushed into content via Sociolla Connect (Soco) were the fuel of its growth. We are really enthusiastic to continue working alongside Sociolla, expanding the opportunity of beauty industry in Indonesia. . #eastventures #startup #venturecapital #beauty"