Romanian private equity and venture capital fund Catalyst Romania has acquired a minority stake in local online retailer elefant.ro, via a share capital increase. The retailer will use the financing for further development.

Elefant.ro presents itself as an online mall, which sells more than 200,000 products and has more than 2 million monthly visitors. Elefant.ro was initially launched as an online book-shop, but in recent years it expanded its portfolio adding new products, such as toys, cosmetics, perfumes, clothing, footwear, accessories, watches and electronics.

Catalyst Romania is the first private equity fund dedicated to Romania which is financed by the European Investment Fund (EIF), via the JEREMIE initiative, which is aimed at supporting SMEs through financial engineering instruments supported from structural funds. The fund was launched in December 2012 and it is managed by the local team of private equity firm 3TS Capital Partners, led by Mihai Sfintescu.

Catalyst invests sums between EUR 200,000 and EUR 2 million in local SMEs primarily active in technology, internet, media, communications and services sectors. Catalyst also provides business expertise to help local innovative SMEs grow and develop. The fund also invested in local online portal avocet.net, specialized in legal information, and in Simartis Telecom. The fund has two other investments in the pipeline, which it will announce in the following months.

Catalyst took a 10% stake in Elefant.ro, but didn’t reveal the value of the investment.

Elefant.ro has recently received another financing from its main shareholder, Fribourg Investments, which is a private equity firm, founded and controlled by Moldovan businessman Ion Sturza, former Prime Minister of Moldova, in 1999. Sturza was also deputy CEO in Romanian oil group Rompetrol, when the group was controlled by Romanian businessman Dinu Patriciu, who died in summer 2014.

Elefant.ro last year had a turnover of EUR 6.5 million and this year plans to reach EUR 15 million. The target for 2015 is to again double its sales to EUR 30 million, according to Ion Sturza, quoted by local Hotnews.ro.

Sturza said his ambition would be to make a partial exit, by listing elefant.ro on the alternative trading system of the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BVB).

editor@romania-insider.com