Zafu, a website is designed to help women find jeans or bras that fit their specific body type — to excruciating detail, as we’ve reported — has raised $4.1 million in a second round of funding.
What’s striking is that this is considered worthy of investment by venture capitalists. Numerous large fashion and retail companies could easily recreate this sort of site with minimal investment. Can Zafu really become a large company of the type that VCs like to bet on? Apparently Carlyle Venture Partners and Wasserstein SBIC Ventures, the investors, think so. Women are still coming online in great numbers, although its possible that trend of gender catch-up may end soon.
The site is also notable for being covered with ads delivered from Glam, another fast-growing woman’s oriented network focused on serving such advertisements. Glam itself is being fueled with millions of dollars in backing, creating quite an ecosystem of sites around it. Are these sites propping themselves up with cross partnerships? A house of cards, or long term sustainable model? We’ll be writing more about Glam Monday. Its July Comscore numbers continue to show growth, but there’s a complex story behind Glam…stay tuned.
16 Comments
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ella bee said:
I think these sites are proliferating the website. Women these days have a lot more choices. The women-focused market is still underserved.
Ella Bee
http://www.HerFabLife.com -
entrepreneur said:
i find your comment, “What’s striking is that this is considered worthy of investment by venture capitalists” to be insulting. why should it be striking that a concept for women that “Numerous large fashion and retail companies could easily recreate.. with minimal investment” get an investment? how many dudes (or rather, technology centric companies) have been started (and received financing) that have been complete copies or minor tweaks of a dozen other startup in the valley? hmmm, SEARCH would be a great example. the fact that you’re slamming a female centric startup that you can’t relate to but rarely ever make BOLD (note i did not say mild) comments about more technology centric companies (which frankly will fail but get published on this blog because they have VC ties) is amusing.
yeah, i agree at the end of the day that this thing could not do so well. however, as a woman who just used the service — it was pretty freaking cool. i think they could do better on the user experience.
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Maggy Young said:
Took a look at Zafu earlier & to be honest my first though was ‘God help us all’ if, like Second Life in a different field, this is what we can produce with the web. But the net audience is now so huge, this site may be useful to enough people. Looking at the above comments, we can underestimate a site’s value, but I think it’s maybe a bit niche.
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Corrinne said:
I’m also surprised they need this much funding, but who knows what their plans are for the money? Maybe it will go to good use. I’ve tried the site a few times for jeans, and was disappointed each time. Yes, it helps with some aspects of fit, but for me being 6 feet tall, inseam is what’s most important, and they don’t even touch on that. Search By Inseam is a better place to shop (http://www.searchbyinseam.com).
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Char said:
At least someone has the guts to go for it. Women represent an under served demographic on the Net. As the owner of a niche site serving moms, we have grown our site, http://www.OurCuteBabies.com, into a safe, fast growing community. And we have done so without a nickel of outside financing. If Zafu executes they too can carve out a profitable and successful niche.
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KC said:
I really think that the last comment should be removed from your site! Char that runs the so called “safe” site of the ourcutebabies is a liar and a cheat. She has taken money from everyone of us that used to be part of that site and promotes her sites on ADULT PORN sites! This is a baby site where thousands of people post pictures of their babies everyday. I was banned from the site without any wrong doing, and she has all of my info and children’s pictures. There will be officials involved. And I would - in your best interest get rid of that name on here and not advertise it any longer. Thanks for your help of bringing down a liar, cheat and someone that my be a pedophile! Thanks again!
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MH said:
I 100% agree with the statement made by KC. Char’s statements are completely false. First off- her site is NOT a safe, family site. They are a paid sponser on a search engine that primarily promotes pornography! If you do not like or agree with what she says on her site, she deletes your profile & kicks you off the site. Second- no outside funding?! HAHA!!! They were charging us $2 to be “verified” to feel safe on that site. Then, she lets people on that are using false info (& she knew)- how is that keeping us safe?! Now she is charging people $4 to belong to her so-called safe site.
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COOLPAPA said:
Hi! My name is Jordan and I have a personal relationship with the lady that started the the baby website. We are in love and I think she is a wonderful woman. She even loves me so much that she let me on her baby website right away so I could talk about my products and so I could browse baby pages. I’m so glad that she kicked off every mother off the site so I could have the site to myself to browse. She is the cream of the crop! Maybe I should give her some “pop chalk” to show my love!
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Jewels said:
I used to belong with OCB as well…I do not feel it is safe for people to be there when they do advertise from a porn site as well as the “owners” Charlotte & Ed have fake profiles & do not even have pics of themselves she gives her age in the 50’s on OCB but on her myspace it was 30?….if you do not agree with ANYTHING she does or says you are suspended even if you ask why someone was suspended you will get suspended….you can only keep in touch with other moms you have met on that site through that site….you may not mention any other site name or you will be suspended or deleted you can not even give your e-mail address to any of your fav’s……that is a site for people who want to join a colt it is not & i repeat not a family friendly site……
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Done said:
I agree. Seems to me when people who run a site go around deleting profiles b/c they disagree with something makes a site very questionable. Not to mention advertising a SAFE baby website on a porn site, definitely takes it out of the SAFE category.
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Done said:
Oh and supporting a dead beat dad doesnt help
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Chars Girl said:
I also had an affair with Char. She is Bi sexual and told me that if I would sleep with her that she would let me use the credit card numbers of several of the members that were verified. I know that it was wrong, but man it was fun shopping:)
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none of your business said:
Whatever, none of you know them like I do so stop with all this drama NOW or you’ll be sorry. No more snooping, no more anything, I’m warning you ALL.
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Done said:
wooo what are u going to do? delete us. LMBO
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Jewels said:
Some more interesting fact about OCB, they pay people to hide their registration information they have for their domain name…..does that really make you feel safe?…..
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shewol5335 said:
I was on ocb and the off and went back because I had problems with other sites. I too heard all the gossip about the porn sites, though never had any issues, and better never or there will be no end to the problems. I dont and haven’t since, rejoining ocb, had a problem, except for one rude comment. If someone was given any of our info regaurding our cc numbers, ect, I would assume that the bbb would have been informed and the site shut down. I dont know what is gossip and what isnt, but I would hope that if there were that much of a problem with that site, that friends who knew about it, would inform me about it. It’s really sad that there are people out there who make the net which is such a wonderful resource in so many ways, such a horrible and unsafe place for families to go and share the good things. People are so sick anymore that seems as if nothing is safe. And when I am not someone’s “fav” on ocb, it says, you have to be friends with this person to view their profile. then you have to send a request, and the member can accept you so you can view their profile and pictures, or they can reject your request, to me that is a pretty safe bet that others outside can’t see that members pic either if you cant see them and are a verified member. too, if you aren’t verified, you can’t do alot of things, like write in the forums, or leave comments on the members pages. all this about the owner being bi and a pedifile and God only knows what other gossip is going around, is just that, gossip, until you know the person personally, that is all it will ever be, gossip.
Though I have been suspended for something stupid, and char fixed it as soon as she found out, and I have had things deleted for dumb reasons, which has been aggravating. So I can in ways agree with the aggravation and the non-privacy issues, but I can also agree wtih the other things on it being a wonderful site, as I have had so many problems solved or I know I can go there if I just need to vent. honestly, not being able to curse and what not is a blessing, as it cuts down on the cursing in everyday things that aren’t via ocb. So therefore I could honestly go both ways on this issue.
