Walk a Mile in Her Shoes

Walk a Mile in Her Shoes
What does Marc Andreessen know about shoes? Unless they’re sneakers, it’s not likely to be much—except that top influencer Kim Kardashian knows her stilettos from her ballerina flats.
And he’s betting millions of dollars that the bootylicious entrepreneur, who’s hawked everything from diet supplements to fragrance, can bedazzle shoe lovers everywhere and make her online footwear and accessories website an overwhelming success.
Of course, making loads of money online is something that Andreessen Horowitz does know something about, having invested in companies like Facebook, Foursquare, Groupon,kids dc shoes, Twitter, Zynga, and Skype—which just turned over a tidy profit when it was sold to Microsoft for $8.5 billion.
But leading a $40 million funding round into a vertical the company has never invested in purely based on the Kardashian name and the reality star's retail knowledge shows the power and reach of her brand, especially since Santa Monica, California-based it is looking to use this money to fund its global expansion.
“We are launching in the U.K. in the next couple of months,” Kardashian’s business partner Brian Lee told Women’s Wear Daily, noting that the firm is also in discussions to expand into Asia by the end of the year and South America after that.
This series D round brings the total money the company has raised to $60 million. So what makes this footwear business any different than the bazillion others out there? After all, it’s not every day that a new Zappos hits the marketplace.
Founded in 2009 by Lee, Kardashian, Robert Shapiro, and M.J. Eng, the site has expanded to 3 million subscribers who pay $39.99 per month, which they can use as a credit toward the purchase of a personalized selection of shoes, jewelry, and handbags priced at $39.99 each. Users can skip a month if they click on "skip the month" by the fifth day of each month.
It was the site's strong social-media platform—it is on Facebook and Twitter and also has its own YouTube channel—that held strong appeal to investors who are seeing major interest in the sector.
“We believe the company, anchored by strong management, is poised for continued strong growth as it continues its relentless focus on providing a customer-centric solution to fashion shoppers,” said John O'Farrell of Andreessen Horowitz, Los Angeles Business reports.