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Indian social media startup ShareChat, backed by Twitter, Tiger Global and Temasek, is shutting down its fantasy sports platform Jeet11 and has laid off some employees.

People familiar with the matter told TechCrunch that the startup sent an email to its affected employees last month. The platform was operational at the time of writing.

ShareChat confirmed to TechCrunch that it is ceasing the operations of Jeet11 and has laid off less than 5% of its employees due to the decision. The startup has a total workforce of around 2,300 employees, suggesting that the move impacted over 100 people.

“As a standard business practice, we periodically evaluate our strategies. We can confirm that we are ceasing operations of Jeet11 and have reorganized some of our functions, which meant movement of this talent within teams and a few employee exits. This process has impacted less than 5% of our employees,” a ShareChat spokesperson said in a prepared statement.

“We continue to focus on robust growth and hiring across various functions and roles as per our plans. To succeed as India’s fastest-growing social media company, we assess our strategy regularly and make necessary changes to achieve our vision.”

Quietly launched in 2020, Jeet11 was ShareChat’s attempt to take on the likes of Dream Sports’ Dream11 and Mobile Premier League.

Despite ShareChat claiming to have made inroads in smaller Indian cities, Jeet11 never gained any meaningful traction among its users.

Fantasy sports as a business has enticed investors in India in the recent past. Google also recently launched a pilot to allow fantasy sports and rummy apps on the Play Store in the country. Nonetheless, several Indian states continue to maintain ban betting apps. Industry experts believe that most of these gambling apps are heavily reliant on cricket matches and struggle to maintain customers after the end of any key tourney.

Twitter-backed ShareChat to shut down fantasy sports app Jeet11, eliminate some jobs by Jagmeet Singh originally published on TechCrunch

Shein, the ultra-fast fashion giant that’s taken the globe by storm, has brought on another heavyweight executive to help steer its ship. It lately onboarded Jessica Liu, former co-president at the Southeast Asian ecommerce giant Lazada, as its vice president of global brand operations.

Liu will be responsible for “global brand partnerships,” according to Shein’s post on LinkedIn. This is an intriguing development, given the platform has focused mostly on its private labels Shein, Romwe, and Sheglam. TechCrunch has reached out to Shein for more details about its plans for global partnerships.

There are already signs that Shein wants to evolve into an all-encompassing e-commerce platform with its horizontal expansion into home appliances, pet products, and its most ambitious push since fashion — cosmetics, which falls under the Sheglam brand.

Shein is projected to generate $30 billion in gross merchandise value in 2022, beating expectations, according to Chinese news site 36kr. H&M sold 199 billion SEK ($19.3 billion) worth of products in 2021, in comparison. But Shein’s low-margin, high-volume business is increasingly under threat by its Chinese peer Temu, Pinduoduo’s overseas sibling. In the space of a few months, Temu has soared through U.S. app stores and sat at the top of all free apps for weeks.

Working with outside brands could help Shein scale across product categories more quickly rather than relying on in-house development. Shein has become a master of managing a vast network of contract manufacturers, but it’s probably a stranger to the glossy world of brands. Shoppers can already find Aukey, the electronics giant that got hit hard by Amazon’s crackdown on Chinese sellers last year,on Shein.

Liu seems like the right candidate to build out Shein’s third-party business given her extensive experience with brands. Her career in ecommerce began with Amazon China nearly two decades ago before she moved on to run the fashion and luxury arm of Tmall, Alibaba’s online department store for big brands. Her stint with Lazada, a member of the Rocket Internet which was acquired by Alibaba, lasted under two years.

Liu is just one of a handful of industry veterans hired by Shein recently to boost its talent pool as the company seeks new areas of growth and faces pressure to address environmental, social, and governance or ESG challenges. Donald Tang, a former Bear Sterns investment banker, joined as executive vice chairman as the company gears up for the IPO process. Leonard Lin, who spent nearly a decade at the Singaporean sovereign fund Temasek, is now global head of Shein’s government relations. In the U.S., Shein recently hired its first lobbyists and Disney veteran Adam Whinston as its global head of ESG.

Shein jumps on the third-party brandwagon with Alibaba veteran by Rita Liao originally published on TechCrunch

Africa’s beauty and personal care market is growing accelerated by its growing young and fashion conscious population, increasing spending power, and urbanization. The market’s potential has in recent years attracted major brands, with Fenty Beauty by Rihanna and LVMH being the latest entrants.

Niche local brands are also emerging to offer tailored beauty and skin care products. Kenya-based Uncover Skincare is one of them and it seeks to revolutionize the sector through data-led manufacturing that is aligned with the needs of the modern African woman.

Backed by a $1 million seed funding, Uncover is scaling its operations in Kenya and expanding to Nigeria in January. This is after recently introducing a new range of skin products in the market, with plans to launch more next year. Its products are sold through its online platform, on marketplaces, and in the stores of partner brands.

“We are using the funding to launch more products, go into additional markets, and also double down on our tech and data to effectively produce, reach and market to our audience,” Uncover co-founder and CEO, Sneha Mehta told TechCrunch.

FirstCheck Africa, Samata Capital, Future Africa, IgniteXL participated in the round, in addition angel investors ex-SokoWatch COO, Kwenhui Tawah, and ex-L’Oreal executive and current WPP Scangroup CEO, Patricia Ithau. The new funding brings the total amount raised by Uncover, since launch in 2020, to $1.225 million.

Mehta co-founded Uncover with Jade Oyateru (COO) and Catherine Lee (Advisor) inspired to build a data driven, digital-first, health and wellness brand for the African woman, by leveraging their experience and expertise.

Mehta has over 10 years’ experience helping businesses scale across Africa, while Oyateru is a nutritionist and consumer goods expert. Lee is an economist turned filmmaker.

Uncover was launched after incubation at Antler. It uses African botanicals and outsources its manufacturing to Korean original design manufacturers, who they say ensures its products are “healthy, safe, affordable and effective.”

“Our production happens in Korea (one of the world’s biggest beauty markets) , where we are leveraging the best technology, labs, and scientists in the world who understand stability testing, safe ingredients, and formulations. We are able to deliver because women in our community have graciously provided information and tried our products, to help us formulate specifically for this market,” said Mehta.

The startup also offers virtual consultations through an in-house esthetician, and produces skin-tertainment content to reach more users, and recently introduced a skin quiz for personalized recommendations.

“I have experienced the lack of safety in products firsthand, the lack of information and the feeling of being stuck. This is part of the reason why we are building these tools for people to get personalized information, and advice including diet tips.”

Mehta says since launch the startup’s revenue has grown 20-fold, buoyed by the growing demand for its products, and the community it continues to build.

“We have had incredible traction since, and our community has grown from zero to about 60,000 women in Kenya in two years… we have built brand awareness, loyalty, and our values of education and knowledge and empowerment have been established at the market,” she said.

Uncover hopes to continue building and strengthening this community, starting with Kenya and Nigeria, which are the next major beauty and personal-brand markets in the continent after South Africa.

Kenya’s Uncover raises $1M to expand skincare product enterprise across Africa by Annie Njanja originally published on TechCrunch