Investor pumps more millions into Zalando

The Swedish investment firm Kinnevik has once again invested

124 million euros in Zalando's German parent company, Rocket Internet. According to Retailnews, the bulk of the investment will go to the footwear webshop.

In the first half of 2012, Kinnevik invested almost half a billion euros in Rocket Internet, which also owns Home24, Dropgifts, Wimdu and eDarling. Between March and July, the firm invested another 124 million euros in Rocket Kinnevik, ratcheting up a total investment of 863 million euros.

Neither party has revealed what the funding is being used for. Analysts suspect that Zalando's international expansion has cost a great deal of working capital. In 2011 Zalando's revenues increased by 240 percent to 510 million euros, compared with 150 million the year before. Meanwhile, the company has been generating 50 percent of its revenues abroad. However, it may take a while before Kinnevik sees any returns on its investment. At this time, Zalando is not yet making a profit.