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Q3 Earnings Recap
Earnings weeks are always busy. Here is a Google doc recapping the performance of public companies across brands, marketplaces, software, fintech, and logistics.
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News
Advertising.
Facebook rebrands as Meta and will increase investment in VR/AR.
Facebook funnels most of its marketing spend to acquiring teenage users. Is very afraid of losing the teenage demographic.
PayPal squashes the Pinterest acquisition rumors.
Shopify partners with Microsoft to help their merchants get increased exposure on Bing and Microsoft Shopping.
IAC and PWC release a report on the state of the digital ad industry. “Digital advertising industry defied expectations with yet another year of double digit growth, and in 2021, is expected to remain a bright spot in an otherwise tough year. Seismic changes are looming, however. Industry leaders urge us all to focus on changing consumer expectations, regulatory reforms and a clear and present talent crisis—or risk not only growth, but relevancy.”
The Information profiles the growing importance of “first party data” and companies like Klaviyo, Yotpo, and Rokt who are positioned to benefit. “Companies can still collect first-party data, such as email addresses from people visiting their sites. This is where firms like Klaviyo, Yotpo and Rokt come in. On merchant sites that use their software, these firms track details such as what customers buy, what they are browsing for, etc. Armed with that data, merchants send text messages or show ads during the checkout process that are tailored to individual customers.”
AR Commerce. Snap hits 100M MAU in India and partners with Flipkart to enable to develop innovative AR experiences for online shopping. “This will be an India-first ecommerce partnership for Snap, and Snap’s camera kit will be an integral part of Flipkart’s “camera storefront”. Through this partnership, shoppers will be able to begin their shopping and ecommerce engagement journey through Snapchat AR, making the process easy from the comfort of their homes.”
Autonomous Last Mile Delivery. Starship reaches 2M deliveries to date fulfilled by its network of small-sized autonomous delivery robots.
B2B Commerce. JCPenney is partnering with Landing International, a B2B marketplace for beauty brands to access large-scale retailers. “Instead of working with multiple beauty manufacturers, JCPenney works directly with Landing International to meet its assortment planning, inventory planning and training needs.”
BNPL.
Klarna partners with Stripe. Stripe will allow retailers to add Klarna’s BNPL service as a payment methodology. “The move will vastly increase Klarna’s potential network of sellers, while retailers with Stripe can access flexible spending options to boost their sales.”
Affirm partners with American Airlines to allow travelers to buy airline tickets over $50 with BNPL.
Brand Collaborations. Fendi and Skims launch a joint collection of shapewear and other products.
Car Parts. RevolutionParts partners with Walmart and will list its “hundreds of thousands of parts” on Walmart.com.
Ecommerce Platform. Shopify onboarded the following notable brands onto its platform in Q3: Spanx, Logitech, Muji USA, Dockers, Kenneth Cole, Frank and Oak, Scotch & Soda, Tupperware, and Big Face by Jimmy Butler.
Gaming Commerce. Chipotle partners with Roblox for Halloween. “Is celebrating its annual Boorito Halloween event by becoming the first restaurant brand to open a virtual location on Roblox. In the Chipotle Boorito Maze experience, Chipotle will make $1M in free burritos available to Roblox users and offer access to new virtual Halloween costumes and exclusive virtual items.”
Headless Commerce. LL Bean chooses Commercetools, a provider of commerce APIs, to modernize its storefront.
Inflation. (Commentary from earnings calls)
"Supply chains are under pressure from tight labor markets, tight transportation markets, and overall capacity constraints. Inflationary pressures are broad-based and sustained." - Procter & Gamble (PG) CFO Andre Schulten
"…it does feel like there is a lot of legs to this inflation story. I always hesitate to predict the macro, but in terms of innings it still feels like relative early innings, and I say that, because of product scarcity, with what’s happening with freight and with -- what’s happening with labor the extreme shortages. It just seems like there is still ways to go and that’s consistent with most folks that I talked to. So I would say still relatively early innings of the story" - MSC Industrial Direct (MSM) CEO Erik Gershwind
"Very early to read anything in terms of price elasticity. I will tell you for those price increases that have gone into the market in the U.S., most of them became effective middle of September and we have not seen any material reaction from consumers in terms of volume offtake. So that makes us feel good about our relative position" - Procter & Gamble (PG) CFO Andre Schulten
Meal Kits. Kroger’s acquired meal kit business, Home Chef, reached $1B in annual sales. “Whether it's meal kits, or heat-and-eat and ready-to-cook solutions – which are available via subscription, in-store, pickup, or delivery – it's safe to say that Home Chef has mealtime covered.”
Membership-Based Commerce.
Outdoor Recreation. Golf and racket sports are on the rise. Racket sports equipment sales spiked by 65% in Q1 2021 compared to Q1 2019. Golf equipment sales exploded by 78% in the H1 2021. A record 6.2M new players hit US golf courses last year.
Payments.
Square launches a closed loop payments network allowing Square merchants to accept transactions directly from Cash App users. “Reduces checkout friction while facilitating contactless in-person payments. Cash App Pay has a processing rate of 2.6% - 2.9% depending on whether the card is present.”
Vtex, the Latam-focused ecommerce platform, partners more closely with Stripe to facilitate payments for merchants in 11 countries across 135 currencies.
Resale. Poshmark wants to get into primary sales. Launches Brand Closet to allow brands to sell directly to Poshmark’s 80M users.
Retention Marketing. Mailchimp is re-integrating with Shopify after previously being kicked off the Shopify platform.
Same-Day Delivery.
Uber Eats partners with French grocer Carrefour to enable 15-minute delivery of groceries in Paris.
Gorillas partners with UK grocer Tesco to enable 15-minute delivery of groceries in Thornton Heath and Greater London. Will establish co-located warehouses within each green-lit Tesco store.
Doordash is looking to launch its own 15-minute delivery service in NYC, Chicago, LA, and SF per details included in recently added job descriptions.
Dollar Tree is extending its partnership with Instacart for same-day delivery to another 7K+ stores.
Abercrombie & Fitch is partnering with Uber, Shipt, Postmates, Roadie, and software provider Delivery Solutions to allow customers to receive deliveries from more than 540 stores within the same day.
Shapewear. A profile of Kim Kardashian which highlights Skims, her shapewear brand. “Skims, a mere two years old, is continuing a rapid expansion beyond its beginnings with inclusive shapewear and bras, having added pajamas, loungewear, dresses and children’s wear, with more to come. Each new drop is centered around a specific fabric (jacquard, velour, cotton and so on), and items can sell out quickly.”
Social Commerce. An overview of how the major social platforms are trying to tap into ecommerce.
Trust and Safety. Proposed legislation in the Senate would “prevent an online platform 1) from keeping another business from interoperating with a dominant platform of other business; 2) from requiring a business to buy a dominant platform's wares to get preferred placement; 3) from "misusing" a business's data to compete against it; and 4) from biasing search in their favor.” Shots fired at Amazon?
TV Marketing.
Lovevery, a fast growing baby toy brand, is seeing success marketing on Roku, the streaming TV platform. “Lovevery found that their campaign on Roku drove improvement in critical funnel metrics, including a 72% lift in website visits, a 105% lift in subscriptions, a 170% lift in purchases, and a ROAS of $1.56 for every $1 spent.”
Roku is losing Youtube and Youtube TV in December.
Roku is starting to buy original content Netflix-style.
Roku partners with Sharp to be the default OS for their US TV lines (Sharp is re-entering the US market).
Comcast shares more plans for its connected TV product.
Used Cars. Hertz and Carvana are partnering to make it easier for Hertz to sell used cars in their fleet.
Warehouse Robotics. Saks Fifth Avenue turns on a high-tech warehouse for online orders in Pennsylvania that is using robots from 6 River Systems. “By tapping software trained on the store’s catalog of products, the robots can rapidly cross-reference incoming orders with a map of product locations in the warehouse and quickly guide workers to the items. From there, workers pick up the items and route them to the appropriate delivery bay. The system helps move goods through the fulfillment process on average twice as fast as manual processes alone.”
Funding and Exits
Brands
Earrings. Rowan raises $20M from VMG Partners at a $100M valuation for its earring brand plus network of ear piercing studios that can be found nationwide in Target stores.
Fashion. Love Bonito raises $50M from Primavera for its Singapore-based fashion brand that is focused on fits that are suitable for Asian women. “Has achieved overall growth of more than 120% compared to the same period in 2020 in international markets, and overall growth of 208% YoY in online sales.”
Food and Beverage.
Coca-Cola is rumored to be buying a majority stake in Bodyarmor for $8B. Aims to compete with Gatorade. “A deal would accelerate sales in Coca-Cola’s hydration, sports and coffee segment. Case volume grew 6% in that division last quarter, in line with carbonated products.”
Impossible Foods is rumored to be raising $500M at a $7B valuation for its plant-based meat products.
N!cks raises $100M from Kinnevik, Ambrosia and Temasekfor its healthy ice cream and snacks products. “At the end of 2019, N!CK’S entered the United States with ice cream and is now leading in velocity per store in that category. Its D2C business launched in 2020 and has remained at the top of the DTC ice cream delivery space since July.”
Daring Foods raises $65M form Founders Fund for its plant-based chicken products. “Recently expanded to Walmart and can be found in 6K locations including online markets like Gopuff and Imperfect Foods. The company saw 900% growth over the past 12 months.”
RealEats raises $16M from Hamilton Lane for its weekly subscription meal delivery service that “makes it simple to enjoy the nutritional benefits of real food.”
Tru raises $3.5M from Tomorrow Ventures for its energy and wellness drinks and tablets. Aims to compete with Red Bull and Vitamin Water.
In The Plug raises $1.5M from Backend Capital and Jack Harlow for its anti-hangover beverages.
Footwear.
Allbirds releases more info ahead of its IPO. Is targeting a $2B valuation. Expects Q3 revenue to be between $61-$62.5M, compared with $47M last year. Expects a net loss of between $15-$18M.
Rothy’s is rumored to be raising capital at a $1B+ valuation.
Chupps raises $1M from Venture Catalysts for its India-based sustainable sandal brand.
Furniture. Arhaus releases more info ahead of its IPO. Is targeting a $2.2B valuation. Reports $355M revenue for H1 2021 and $16M of net income.
Haircare. Hairstory raises an disclosed amount of capital from Summit Partners for its sustainable haircare products.
Keyboards. 100 Thieves, an esports team/brand, acquires Higround, a keyboard brand.
Kids.
Moonbug considers a sale or IPO at a $3B valuation. Is the maker of hit children’s show “CoComelon”. Is on pace to generate roughly $100M in net income this year from content licensing and merchandise sales.
Lovevery raises $100M from TCH at a $800M valuation for its subscription-based kids today products. “Has more than 220K subscribers and shipped >1M play kits in the last 12 months.”
Micromobility. Rad Power Bikes raises $154M from Morgan Stanley’s mutual fund, Counterpoint Global, and others for its electric bikes brand. “Has 350K customers riding its e-bikes and is projected to add another 100K customers in the latter half of 2021. The company, which operates at about break-even, currently offers 11 e-bike models and plans to add more in the future.”
Petcare. Platinum Equity acquires Cosmic Pet, a developer and distributor of pet treats and accessories. “The US pet industry continues to demonstrate steady growth fueled by increased consumer demand for products that improve the quality of life for pets.”
Restaurants. Sweetgreen shares its S-1 ahead of going public. Had 1.35M customers place at least one order in the 90 days ending Sep 26th. 68% of revenue was generated from digital orders.
Marketplaces
Ad Network. Admix raises $25M from Elefund and DIP Capital for its programmatic ad network that spans 300 games.
B2B Commerce.
GrubMarket raises $145M from Blackrock and others for its B2B food supply marketplace that allows retailers to buy food inventory online. “In the last 12 months, revenues are up more than 300% over last year, reaching a $1B annualized run-rate, while maintaining strong profitability.”
Dehaat raises $115M from Sofina and Lightrock for its marketplace serving farmers with working capital, seeds and fertilizers, and connections to buyers. “Serves over 650K farmers and has grown 5x in the past 7 months.”
LoveLocal raises $18M from Vulcan Capital for its India-based wholesale marketplace that allows retailers to procure inventory across grocery, chemist, dairy, and fresh fruits and vegetables. “Serves nearly 100K retailers in over 35 cities across India.”
Vendease raises $3M from GFC for its marketplace that allows restaurants and other food businesses to buy supplies straight from manufacturers and farms. “Last month, the company hit an annualized GMV of $13M and has grown 17x since last year.”
Brand Rollups. Thrasio raises $1B from Silver Lake at a >$5B valuation to continue acquiring brands operating on marketplaces like Amazon. “The three-year-old brand aggregator is set to have $1B in revenue and has more than 200 brands.”
Fashion Resale. Vopero raises $7.5M from Grupo Axo and ThredUp for its fashion resale marketplace focused on Latam. “Vopero’s social commerce platform offers a plug-and-play resale experience for fashion brands and retailers tailored to their specific needs, including overstock resale via Vopero, ongoing circular loyalty programs for customers to resell and repurchase, and the creation and launch of a full secondhand section within a brand’s online or physical store, with inventory sourced by Vopero.”
Flower Delivery. Flowerbx raises $11M from Capstar Ventures for its flower delivery service. “Flowerbx has seen revenues double every year since its inception, leading the company to be billed as one of the most promising businesses in the $50B global flower market.”
Grocery. Kurly plans to go public at a target valuation of $5.9B next year. Operates an online grocery delivery service in Korea. Has 9M users and generated $853M revenue on 2020 with a target of $1.7B revenue in 2021.
Health. FemTec Health acquires Birchbox for $45M. Will ask Birchbox’s 300K+ subscribers to share personal health info. Also acquires Mira AI for $28M, which uses data and artificial intelligence to match a consumer’s attributes with beauty products and content they might find relevant.
Merchandise. Cameo acquires merchandise marketplace Represent. “Represent counts Jennifer Lopez, Ed Sheeran, Leonardo DiCaprio, Matthew McConaughey and Kendall Jenner among the members of its pool of partnered talent.”
Same-Day Delivery. Pop Market raises $3.5M from GFC and 468 Capital for its Greece-focused 15-minute delivery grocery service.
Sneaker Resale. Carousell acquires Ox Street, a Singapore-based marketplace for authenticated sneakers and streetwear.
Software
Ad Optimization. Assembly acquires Pacvue, a marketplace advertising, sales and intelligence platform. “Pacvue was one of the first to join the Amazon Advertising retail network in 2017.”
Drop Shipping. Logicbroker raises $135M from K1 Investment Management for its drop ship software platform which allows 3P sellers on a marketplace to easily ship products directly to the end customer. “Is growing about 80% YoY in revenue. Works with over 4K companies, including Mars Wrigley and Samsung, and powers $5B in annual GMV.”
Last Mile Delivery. Beans.ai raises $17M from Saama Capital for its hyper-accurate maps and routing software for apartments, condos, hospitals and universities to facilitate better delivery to those buildings.
Video Shopping. Social Chat raises $6M from Race Capital and Gradient Ventures for its software product enabling social commerce capabilities on brands’ storefronts.
Fintech
BNPL. Billie raises $100M from Dawn Capital at a $640M valuation for its B2B-focused BNPL offering. “Has passed 100K customers and grown nearly 4x since its last round.”
Checkout. Rally raises $6M from Rainfall Ventures for its one-click checkout platform.
Neobanks.
Zolve raises $40M from DST Global at a $210M valuation for its neobank, which encompasses a credit card, local bank account, and debit card, focused on immigrants. “Rolled out its credit card to 2K customers and has amassed a waiting list that has surpassed 70K.”
Ando raises $6M from TTV Capital for its sustainability-focused neobank. “Is the only banking service to use customer deposits to fund solar initiatives and other carbon-reducing projects.”
Logistics
Cloud Kitchens. Butler Hospitality raises $30M from Shamrock Holdings for its network of dark kitchens based in hotel kitchens. “With this investment, Butler will more than double their presence to 12 markets across the US, with plans to service nearly 250K rooms.”
Shipping Labels. Skydropx raises $20M from Base10 Partners, Cometa, and 645 Ventures for its Latam-based logistics booking API that allows customers to select from 250 shipping options, track notifications via WhatsApp, see estimated delivery times and enable return management. “Now serves over 50K customers and makes more than 1.5M deliveries a month.”
Warehouse Network. Deliverr is rumored to be raising $250M from Tiger Global at a $2B valuation. Enables brands to offer 2-day shipping by distributing inventory across the Deliverr network.
Warehouse Robotics. Fabric raises $200M from Temasek at a >$1B valuation. Offers a proprietary robotic micro-fulfillment technology stack designed from the ground up to make on-demand fulfillment profitable and scalable for all retailers. “Is running micro-fulfillment operations for grocery and general merchandise retailers in New York City, Washington, DC, and Tel Aviv.”
Product of the Week
Oura releases its new health tracking ring which goes beyond tracking sleep and counting steps. The ring can now measure heart rate, heart rate variability, skin temperature, respiratory rate, blood oxygen levels, and can even predict menstrual cycles. Buy it here.
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