Co-founder of The Iconic tells how the online fashion retailer scored $19.2 million in funding from JP Morgan

Online fashion retailer The Iconic has just secured an estimated US$20 million ($19.2 million) in funding from JP Morgan Asset Management to help the online retailer grow further.

The Iconic stocks brands including RMK, Sass & Bide, and Mollini and launched 10 months ago.

Since then it has grown at a rate of about 20% to 30% each month since the beginning of 2012, ahead of initial expectations for growth of 10%.

The site currently gets about 150,000 unique visitors a day and 3 million per month and has gone from its initial 10 staff to a staff of 300.

Finn Haensel, one of the retailer’s founders, told SmartCompany the cash would be used to ensure the online-only retailer has enough stock for next season.

“The faster you grow the more you have to invest in working capital,” he says.

“We originally had a business plan which expected a certain amount of growth, but what we can do with this money is to invest further into the company and accelerate our growth.

“We’ll use it to become more efficient, automating processes and investing money into new markets. We have just started in the kids market and we are becoming bigger in New Zealand as well as in Australia and we can do more marketing to acquire more customers.”

Haensel won’t disclose the number of orders The Iconic is recording but says it is “more than 1,000 a day”. He also won’t comment on the value of the site’s sales, although he cites a “market rumour” that it is $10 million a month.