FashionValet burned RM47M from state funds and crashed — the founders face CBT charges

FashionValet Sdn Bhd, once Malaysia's most prominent fashion e-commerce platform and a poster child of the country's startup scene, collapsed after state-linked investors lost RM43.9 million of public money. The company was founded in 2010 by Vivy Yusof, a social media influencer with over 1.8 million followers, and her husband Fadzarudin Shah Anuar. At its peak, the platform generated RM60 million in annual revenue, rising to RM100 million within a year of Khazanah and PNB's investment.

In 2018, Malaysia's sovereign wealth fund Khazanah Nasional Bhd invested RM27 million and asset manager Permodalan Nasional Bhd (PNB) invested RM20 million in FashionValet, for a combined RM47 million. The investment was justified as supporting Bumiputera digital retail and local tech entrepreneurship. By 2022, the company had shut down its e-commerce platform and pivoted to in-house brands Duck and Lilit. It recorded losses of RM9.63 million in FY2021 and RM34.51 million in FY2022.

The business model unravelled for two reasons. First, fashion brand owners shifted from using a common fashion portal to selling directly to consumers during the pandemic, bypassing intermediaries like FashionValet. Second, the company invested heavily in an omnichannel presence — physical stores and a new technology stack — at the worst possible time, coinciding with COVID-19. The omnichannel investment created a cash crunch. When FashionValet asked existing investors for more money, PNB declined, citing the company's failure to deliver on previous milestones.

At the end of 2023, Khazanah and PNB sold their collective stakes to local investment firm NXBT Partners for just RM3.1 million — a 93.4% loss on the RM47 million invested. In December 2024, the founders were charged with criminal breach of trust involving RM8 million of the investment funds. The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission had raided FashionValet's headquarters and three other locations, including the Finance Ministry, in November 2024 as part of the investigation.