My Work
Apologies!
I wasn’t able to get Daily Consumer out these last two Fridays. I was sprinting on a new investment and was able to get it across the line. Stay tuned for an announcement via this newsletter in a few weeks.
Next week, I will share an updated earnings readout for ecommerce/retail companies including specific highlights from some of the earnings calls. There’s a lot to take away as we head into the holiday season amidst massive supply chain challenges and consumer demand shifting back offline.
Until then, wishing you and your family a happy Thanksgiving. I’m certainly thankful that you’re a reader of this newsletter.
Community
Okendo, a portfolio company of mine, revamped their reviews management platform for Shopify merchants. Reduces the time needed for a customer to share a review and also allows the merchant to set an intelligent “next action” once the review is received.
Congratulations to my girlfriend, Colleen. She has been on the recruiting team at Faire for a few years, and the company is now worth $12B! Not implying that it’s causation, but perhaps to some degree :) See more in the funding section below.
News
Advertising.
The Financial Times claims that Apple privacy changes cost Snap, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube approximately $9.85B in ad revenue.
Patreon is working on its own video hosting platform to compete with YouTube.
Alcohol Delivery. ReserveBar acquires Minibar Delivery, a marketplace for on-demand delivery of alcohol from 2.8K retail partners nationwide including 7-Eleven. “"This acquisition is born out of synergies generated by the complementary e-commerce segments we serve.”
B2B Commerce.
Faire shares how they use data and machine learning to match 30K brands with 250K retailers on their marketplace. “As brands fill out their profile we want to give them actionable insights on how to improve their catalogue and their chances of succeeding on Faire.”
Bed Bath & Beyond launches a new digital marketplace that will feature products from 3P brand partners. “We are developing new avenues of long-term profitable growth to allow us to organically build on our existing authority in the Home and Baby categories.”
Checkout. Benefit Cosmetics is revamping is checkout with Bolt, a one-click checkout provider.
Content + Commerce. Hulu launches its own online shop which will feature limited-edition collections of apparel and lifestyle products from Hulu Originals and other titles in the company’s on-demand library.
DTC Brands.
A great Twitter thread on the challenges faced by DTC ecommerce brands right now. Marketing channels and supply chains breaking is making life hard.
Business Insider profiles the 25 fastest growing D2C brands based on web traffic data. Immi, a ramen food brand, tops the list.
A profile of Anker, the massive DTC brand built around smartphone chargers.
Ecommerce Platform. Linktree, a popular link-in-bio platform and an Index company, partners with Shopify to give users a way to promote Shopify storefronts and list products directly on its platform.
Food and Beverage. Restaurant chains are increasingly launching their own CPG products. “Some restaurants now want 50% of their business to come from outside their restaurants’ four walls.”
Gaming Commerce.
Nike partners with Roblox. Will build “Nikeland” in Roblox’s game, a virtual space designed after Nike’s headquarters that will also allow Roblox users to outfit their avatars in Nike products.
Nike files trademark applications for virtual branded sneakers and apparel as it plans to increases its presence in the metaverse.
TikTok is rolling out HTML5 games in its app.
Holiday Shopping. Adobe releases their holiday ecommerce forecast. Expect a record $207B of holiday online spending despite product shortages.
Influencer-Driven Commerce.
Elton John Eyewear launches at Walmart and Sam’s Club.
Colin Kaepernick invests in and becomes a brand ambassador of Ergatta, a connected rower brand.
Influencer Marketing. A deep dive on influencer marketing. What it is, how it works, etc.
Live Shopping.
Eric Feng deep dives into live shopping in China, how pervasive the behavior is there, and what it takes to make live shopping successful (TLDR: storytelling, intimacy, authenticity).
QVC and HSN hosted a 49-hour live shopping festival called 'Shop With Us Live' with 200+ hours of planned content.
Pinterest launches Pinterest TV. Will be a series of shoppable livestreams starting November 8th and will star a creator on the platform including the likes of Manny Mua and Tom Daley.
Local Commerce. Doordash enables nationwide shipping. Allows consumers to order products from Doordash merchants that can be shipped regardless of where the customer lives.
Logistics. Amazon now delivers more packages in the US than FedEx. Delivers 4B packages per year, up from 0 in 2014!
Luxury. Burberry will launch 8 new renditions of the signature Burberry Arthur sneaker exclusively on GOAT.
Macroeconomics. The Fed is tapering. Supply chain issues are causing inflation. Ad revenue is softening due to supply chain issues. Supply chain issues driven by labor competitiveness, which the Fed argues will rebound once pandemic subsides globally.
Payments.
140M Chinese citizens have opened wallets to use China’s new government-sanctioned digital yuan currency. $9.7B of payment volume has occurred with this digital currency.
Adobe partners with Bolt to allow Adobe Commerce merchants to add Bolt one-click checkout to their stores.
Square makes Cash App available to teens aged 13 or older. No more allowances via cash!
Amazon will stop accepting UK-issued Visa credit cards on 1/19/2022. Is a negotiating tactic to try to get Visa to lower what Amazon sees as high credit card fees.
Resale.
Net-a-Porter partners with Reflaunt to enter resale. “Will collect customers’ items from their home or pick them up at drop-off locations, then handle everything from photographing the product to listing and pricing. Customers only have to choose how they wish to get paid once it gets sold, either by a bank transfer or in the form of Net-a-Porter store credit for a 10% added bonus.”
Zalando launches Zircle, a fashion resale app.
Retail Media. Retailers want to build their own advertising businesses by adding ads to their online stores and mobile apps. “The size of the prize in retail media is about $100B annually. Players like Amazon and Walmart are actually taking market share and taking budget from Google and Facebook, because there is already retail on the site, so they’re even closer to the transaction than Google is.”
Same-Day Delivery.
Deliveroo is rolling out rapid grocery delivery, called Deliveroo Hop, globally after testing the concept in London.
Dollar General partners with Doordash to enable on-demand delivery of household items including food, snacks, cleaning supplies, etc. Is available in 9K stores.
GoPuff claims to have 70% market share in the “instant needs” market.
Uber integrates with Olo to allow Olo restaurants to dispatch food delivery orders to Uber’s network of drivers.
Uber Eats partners with Bed Bath & Beyond. Will allow Uber Eats custoemrs to order baby and home products from 750 BBB locations and 120 buybuyBaby locations.
Doordash partners with Ulta Beauty to enable same-day delivery of 25K+ beauty products.
Shopify. A great profile of Tobi Lutke, the founder of Shopify.
Social Commerce. ARK Invest deep dives into social commerce. Position live shopping as a behavior emerging from the important of online reviews.
TV Marketing.
55M (40% of total) US households only watch connected TV. “CTV viewers said they were twice as likely to buy a product after seeing an ad they paid attention to.”
A profile of the growing connected TV platforms. TLDR is that internet companies, cable companies, and TV manufacturers are all going after Roku.
Warranties. Extend partners with Cart.com to allow merchants to easily offer warranties to their end customers.
Funding and Exits
Brands
Alcohol. JuneShine raises $24M from Amberstone and Litani Ventures for its hard kombucha brand. “Saw its revenues triple between 2019 and 2020, and double during the following year.”
Babycare.
Helaina raises $20M from Spark Capital and Siam Capital for its baby formula that is more nutritious but still resembles human milk.
Amara raises $12M from Eat Well Group for its nutrient-dense foods created for children up to seven years old.
Needed raises $5.8M from Seae Ventures for its pregnancy-focused supplements products.
Food and Beverage.
Chobani files to go public.
Daily Harvest raises $77M from Lone Pine Capital at a $1.1B valuation for its subscription-based, health-focused frozen foods brand. “Did more than $250M revenue in 2020.”
Future Farm raises $58M from BTG for its plant-based meat products which are available in 24 countries and 10K locations.
The Naked Market raises $27.5M from Integrated Capital to launch a portfolio of healthy food brands. “Has a proprietary data tool called The Machine that gathers over 15M data points from places like Shopify, direct customer feedback, Amazon, retail point of sale and search engine trends, to unearth category opportunities for the company to pursue.”
Gooder Foods raises $6.4M from Springdale Ventures, Willow Growth Partners, and others for its adult-targeted mac and cheese brand.
AKUA raises $3.2M from Vibrant Ventures for its kelp-based meat products including a jerky and burger.
Neutral Foods raises $4M from Bill Gates and Mark Cuban for its carbon neutral milk product.
QOA raises $6M from Cherry Ventures for its cocoa-free chocolate.
Home Goods.
Hai raises $6M from Trousdale Ventures for its sustainability-focused showerhead. “You can infuse aromatherapy or hair and skin treatments directly into the water. That really helps deliver that spa experience that we are trying to create in your home bathroom.”
iRobot acquires Aeris, an air purifier brand, for $72M.
Micromobility. Ampler Bikes raises $8.5M from Taavet+Sten for its electric bike brand.
Pet Food. Jinx raises $28M from The Merchant Club plus celebrities like Trevor Noah and Odell Beckham Jr for its clean dog nutrition brand.
Supplements. Nutrafol, a maker of hair supplements, is exploring a sale around a $1B valuation.
Thermostats. Generac acquires Ecobee, a brand of smart thermometers, for $650M.
Marketplaces
B2B Commerce.
Faire raises $400M from Durable, D1 Capital Partners, and Dragoneer for its B2B marketplace connecting retailers with brands. “Over the past year, Faire has sold over 125M products via its platform.”
Farmers Business Network raises $300M from Fidelity for its B2B marketplace serving farmers with all the supplies they need including seeds and pesticide. Has 33K farms on its platform.
GrubMarket raises $200M from Tiger Global at a $1.2B valuation for its B2B food distribution service. “Has already achieved an annual run rate of $1B, with over 300% growth this year in eCommerce revenues and over 3500% growth in SaaS software sales, while maintaining strong net profitability.”
Chiper raises $53M from Nosara Capital for its B2B marketplace helping Latam corner stores access inventory online with lower prices and often same-day delivery on thousands of products. “Already serves 40K+ corner stores and saw 7x revenue growth in the last 12 months.”
Packhelp raises $46M from InfraVia Growth for its B2B marketplace that helps brands procure their packaging. Has more than 50K customers across 30 countries and has made 50M pieces to date.
Noissue raises $10M from Felix Capital for its sustainable packaging marketplace. “Serves more than 80K customers after growing 200% across North America during the pandemic.”
Moov raises $41M from Tiger Global for its B2B marketplace for manufacturing equipment that has $1.5B in active listings. “They recognized companies in the industry, such as Qualcomm and Samsung, spend billions of dollars a year purchasing manufacturing equipment only for it to get scrapped or forgotten in an offsite warehouse in a few years despite being usable for decades.
Twiga Foods raises $50M from Creadev for its B2B marketplace that connects food retailers with farmers and product manufacturers. “Claims that over 100K customers use its services across Kenya while delivering more than 600 metric tons of product to 10K+ retailers daily.”
Baby Registry. Babylist raises $40M from Norwest Venture Partners for its digital baby registry + product marketplace. “8M people made purchases on Babylist in the last year, and the company is on track to achieve $250M in 2021 revenue.”
Beauty. Thirteen Lune raises $3M from Fearless Fund for its inclusive beauty ecommerce platform that sells 13 BIPOC-focused brands.
Brand Rollups.
Heyday raises $555M from Raine Group and PremjiInvest to acquire brands operating on Amazon. “Heyday aims to build this generation’s P&G or Unilever. Has 15 brands on its platform currently and is at a $200M revenue run-rate. Makes 1-2 acquisitions per month.”
Mensa Brands raises $135M from Falcon Edge Capital at a $1B valuation. Acquires D2C brands focused on India across fashion, home, and beauty. “Has 12 brands today and wants to add 30 more in the next 12 months.”
Razor Group raises $125M from Fortress Investment Group, 468 Capital, and others at a $1B+ valuation to acquire merchants selling on Amazon. “Claims that it is profitable on a group EBITDA basis and is going to post $400M in revenues for 2021.”
OpenStore raises $75M from General Catalyst at a $750M valuation to acquire Shopify merchants. Plans to end the year acquiring one Shopify business per day.
Gravitiq raises $55M in debt and equity from CoVenture, Crossbeam Venture Partners, and others. Is focused on buying Amazon brands in the consumer health category.
Una Brands raises $15M from White Star Capital and Alpha JWC to acquire brands focused on the Asia-Pacific region. Has bought more than 15 brands to date.
Hypefast raises $19.5M from Monk’s Hill Ventures and others for its Indonesia-based brand rollups business.
Kilo raises $5M from Altos Ventures for its Vietnam-based B2B marketplaces connecting small retailers with wholesalers and brands.
Collectibles. Alt raises $75M for its platform for card collectors that allows them to buy and sell as well as borrow against the value of the cards. “Customers have added over $200M of assets to their portfolios, $70M of assets are custodied in our physical Vault, and the Exchange has experienced 30% MoM growth in GMV.”
Concierge-Based Commerce. Curated raises $75M from CapitalG for its network of over 1K experts who get paid to provide their knowledge, bringing an in-person shopping experience online to assist with purchasing high-consideration products. Initially spans sporting equipment for skiing, golf, camping, hiking and biking and claims to have grown 300% YoY.
Fashion. Rue Gilt Groupe files to go public.
Food Waste.
Gifting. Goody raises $15M from Softbank for its mobile gifting marketplace that is both B2C and B2B in nature. This is a portfolio company of mine.
Grocery Delivery.
Breadfast raises $26M from Vostok New Ventures and Endure Capital for its Egypt-focused grocery delivery service. “Currently serves 170K households in Egypt with more than 2.5K supermarket items. It claims to have more than a 65% customer retention rate month-on-month. Revenue has also grown 4x from 2019 to 2020.”
MilkRun raises $6M from Spark Capital for subscription grocery delivery service delivering weekly staples sourced from small, local farms. Grew 15x in 2020 and now works with over 300 farms.
Appetito raises $2M from Jedar Capital for its Egypt-focused grocery delivery service.
International. Allegro, a dominant Polish ecommerce marketplace, acquires Mall Group, a Czech Republic-focused marketplace, for $1B. “Buyers will benefit from the improved selection, price and convenience, while a joint base of around 135K merchants will be able to 'list once, sell everywhere’.”
Price Comparison. Klarna acquires PriceRunner, a leading comparison shopping service in the Nordic region that compares 3.4M products from 22.5K retailers.
Same-Day Delivery.
Doordash acquires Wolt, a leading local commerce marketplace that operates in 23 countries, primarily in Europe, for $7.9B in Doordash stock. “We have an opportunity to build a global platform for local commerce in the internet era.”
Zepto raises $60M from Glade Brook Capital for its India-focused 15-minute delivery service. “The startup plans to soon expand to Hyderabad, Pune and Kolkata and grow the number of dark stores it has to over 100 by early next year from 40 currently.”
Rabbit raises $11M from GFC, Raed Ventures, and others for its 20-minute convenience delivery service in Egypt.
Social Commerce.
Facily raises $250M from DX Ventures and Delivery Hero at an $850M valuation for its Brazil-based group buying marketplace. “Consumers in these sectors spend an average of 65% of their family income on food and so far have been practically excluded from traditional ecommerce. Facily attends this need, with most of our users shopping online for the first time.”
Picker raises $4M from Luxor Capital for its Spain-focused group buying platform.
Used Cars. Clutch raises $80M from D1 Capital Partners for it’s Canada-focused online used car buying platform. “Clutch has sold thousands of used vehicles on its site, and currently has about 1.2K more in stock.”
Software
3D Content. VNTANA raises $10.5M from Mark Cuban, Brendan Iribe, Flexport and Anorak Ventures for its content management system that helps ecommerce retailers show off products on their sites in 3D.
Cross-Selling. Carro raises $20M from Alpha Edison for its software that allows brands to sell each others products. “Used by 7M influencers and 30K brands.”
Drop Shipping. Cymbio raises $20M from Corner Ventures for its drop shipping automation platform to enable brands to sell on any ecommerce platform. “Has tripled its revenues in 2021 and supports 400 brands including New Balance, Steve Madden, etc.”
Ecommerce Platform. Fourthwall raises $17M from Lightspeed, Initialized, and others for its creator-focused ecommerce platform that allows creators to sell merchandise, memberships, and other products.
Fit Visualization. Neatsy.ai raises $1M from Cabra VC amd Flyer One VC for its 3D scanning technology that helps online shoppers better understand how sneakers will fit.
Fraud Prevention. Justt raises $70M from Oak HC/FT for its chargeback fraud prevention software. “Costs online sellers an estimated over $125B in lost revenue. Company claims it’s already processing 10K chargebacks per month for very large enterprise clients.”
Marketplace Optimization. Promoted AI raises $2M from Interlace Ventures and Rebel Fund. for its AI-enabled software that personalizes results for users of marketplaces like Snackpass and Hipcamp.
Search. Shopify acquires Donde Search, a provider of computer vision-driven search technology.
Shipping Audit. Coros raises $6M from Dynamo Ventures for its supply chain visibility software that allows a unit-level view into fulfillment operations to ensure shipments aren’t missed.
SMS Commerce. Walmart acquires assets from Botmock to work on enabling voice and text-based ecommerce.
UGC Collection. Archive raises $4M from Stripe for its software that automatically detects and saves Instagram posts, stories, and Reels that a brand gets tagged in.
Fintech
BNPL.
ShopBack acquires Hoolah, a Southeast Asia-focused BNPL service used by more than 250K shoppers and available at 2K merchants.
Kafene raises $75M in equity and debt from Valar Ventures, Third Prime, and others for its BNPL platform for high price purchases.
Aplazo raises $27M from Oak HC/FT for its Mexico-focused omni-channel BNPL platform. “Since the seed round, Aplazo grew its total processing volume more than eight times and in less than a year has partnered with over 1K merchants.”
Plentina raises $2.2M from TMV for its Philippines-based BNPL platform. “In 2021, grew from 30K users to over 150K.”
Lending.
Qupital raises $150M from Greater Bay Area Homeland Development Fund for its cross-border ecommerce trade finance platform. “Has recorded more than $500M in loan advancements for ~7K merchants.”
Velocity raises $20M from Valar Ventures for its revenue-based financing platform for ecommerce businesses in India.
Settle raises $60M from Ribbit Capital to enable ecommerce merchants to extend their payables. “Settle has increased its revenues 20 times and grew to 500 merchants since last summer.”
Neobanks.
Upgrade raises $280M from Coatue and DST Global at a $6B valuation for its repayment-focused credit card. “Has delivered $10B in credit to consumers through its credit cards and personal loans. Upgrade’s growth has been accelerating as the company expects to deliver $8B in credit in 2021 alone.”
Nubank files to go public. Has 48M active customers across Brazil, Mexico and Colombia. “For the nine-month period that ended Sept. 30, 2021, Nubank's revenue doubled to $1.06B.”
Fi raises $50M from B Capital and Falcon Edge at a $315M valuation for its India-focused neobank.
Payments.
Mynt raises $300M from Warburg Pincus and Insight Partners for its Philippines-focused mobile wallet called GCash with 48M users that drives $59 billion in GTV per year.
Imprint raises $38M from Kleiner Perkins and Stripe for its ACH payments platform that incentives shoppers to pay with their bank account in exchange for rewards. “Imprint saves a brand somewhere between 60% and 90% of the cost of the process of payment.”
Pomelo Pay raises $10M from Inference Partners for its UK and Singapore-focused omnichannel payments platform. Has crossed $500M processed in 2021.
Payments Gateway.
Ozow raises $XM from Tencent for its platform that automates EFT ecommerce payments for consumers, which used to require multiple steps. “EFTs have become South Africa’s second most popular payment option (after cards) for ecommerce. Ozow now processes over $100M in transaction volume per month across thousands of merchants.”
Plug Pagamentos raises $2.7M from Costanoa Ventures for its Brazil-focused payments API that allows merchants to set rules for which payment processor to route transactions to.
Logistics
Delivery. Delhivery, an India-focused last mile delivery network operating across 2.3K cities, files to go public. “Reported a loss of $56M on revenue of $514M in the financial year that ended in March this year.”
Fulfillment.
American Eagle acquires Quiet Logistics, a fashion-focused fulfillment services provider, for $350M.
ShipBlu raises $2.4M from Nama Ventures for its Egypt-focused fulfillment and delivery service that works with 40+ merchants.
Robotic Delivery.
Nuro raises $600M from Google and Tiger Global at a $8.6B valuation for its autonomous delivery service. “Is currently piloting its technology with a number of companies, including CVS pharmacies, FedEx, Kroger grocery stores and Walmart.”
Flytrex raises $40M from BRM Group for its drone-delivery service. “We estimate that we’ll have national approval by the first half of next year.”
Product of the Week
Daily Harvest is revolutionizing frozen foods. They make great meals that are convenient and nutritious. From a business perspective, they are also a pioneer of the subscription-based model, especially in the food category. Buy it here.