Condé Nast Invests in Jewelry Company

[Shucks]

Condé Nast Reveals Investment In Jewellery Startup, As Media Scrambles For New Revenues

Mike Butcher

In yet another an indication that big media powerhouses are starting to refocus their businesses on driving new models like commerce, publishing giant Condé Nast has made what is understood to be its first investment in an e-commerce startup in Europe. Condé Nast Germany has invested in RenéSim, one of Europe’s first online jewellers in the luxury category. The premium publisher, best known for titles like Vogue magazine, said it had actually owned shares in the company since 2011, but has now raised its stake to 46% in a capital increase. Condé Nast already owns Reddit, although this is a publishing play, not e-commerce.

RenéSim is an online-only jeweller with no intermediate dealers and offers high-quality jewellery of all descriptions as well as custom-made jewellery, not unlike the UK-based startup Boticca, although the latter specialises in pushing its unique designers.

In a canned statement, Moritz von Laffert, managing director of Condé Nast Germany and VP of Condé Nast International said: “With its philosophy of unconditional quality and exclusivity and its discerning customer profile, RenéSim is perfectly suited to Condé Nast and our investment strategy.”

He also indicated that we haven’t seen the last of this investment philosophy: “We specifically target young, innovative businesses where we can contribute actively to a sustainable increase in value and which, as new business models, can provide meaningful additions to our media portfolio.” That’s a hint that there may be more acquisitions and investments to come.

Maximilian Hemmerle and Georg Schmidt-Sailer, the founders and Managing Directors of RenéSim said: “Condé Nast’s exclusive media brands give us valuable access to our hard to approach, discerning target group. In addition, with its worldwide presence and global brands, Condé Nast is the ideal partner for the continued internationalisation of our business model.”

Since Condé Nast’s investment in 2011, RenéSim claims its sales volume has quadrupled. In addition, the business expanded to France and the United Kingdom in 2012.

The move makes sense for Condé Nast, and is not unexpected from a publisher that can easily blur the the line between fashion editorial and commerce given that magazines like Vogue always offer information on where and how to buy the things it writes about.

from techcrunch.com





so even less journalistic integrity in fashion media to be expected going forward - not only bowing to every whim of advertisers, but also surreptitiously promoting own brands...

[Faust]

Considering the recent Business of Fashion article about Lucy Yeomans about essentially creating a catalog veiled as a magazine, nothing new. Well, it's been nothing new, only now there is no pretense that there is any independent editorial authority left in fashion mags. Maybe it's better that way, more honest.

[Shucks]

yeah, it's happening from both sides. but i haven't heard of a 'media' company investing quite like this before, and i wonder just how open they will be about it when they plug these brands in the magazines...

what will be interesting to see is if this will create the same conflict that has developed in the supermarket business, between private (own) labels and bought labels.

e.g. will a high-profile jewelry brand be less interested in advertizing in magazines that are more focused on pushing their own jewelry brands, just like food brands are not interested in just being used by stores for attracting traffic that then only converts into sales of the stores' own (cheaper) private labels?

my guess is that this will lower already shrinking advertizing revenue of magazines even further, so this move only makes sense if the magazines manage to understand and master the logic of their new business environment (let's call it 'retail-media' for lack of a better term). so buying into existing brands is a safer move than developing new ones, but i am sure we will also the latter soon.

[Fuuma]

Convergence is nothing new and that it is happening in fashion is much less worrying than in other industries.

[Shucks]

Convergence is nothing new and that it is happening in fashion is much less worrying than in other industries.

so what? everything is more important than fashion, but this is a fashion forum. and yes, it is new that a fashion media company invests like this.