This article will serve as an in-depth, concise guide to those companies who have acquired Amazon FBA brands, and why they are worth looking out for in the future. What can we learn from their aggregator business model, and who are the most major aggregators that are still acquiring and scaling brands today?
There are more than 90 confirmed acquirers of Amazon FBA brands. More than $12.5 billion of funding has been raised in the last three years.
All aggregators are going after a $4.3 trillion e-commerce sales market with Amazon accounting for $490 billion of GMV (Gross Merchandise Value). Amazon Third-Party Sellers account for $300 billion and there are 35,000 of Amazon FBA brands with more than $1 million in revenue.
The huge fragmentation and large number of attractive sellers presents a lucrative opportunity for aggregation.
Most aggregators are looking to unlock massive inefficiencies among the sellers and improve supply chain & logistics, increase marketing spend and efficacy, SEO, legal, customer care, creative, finance and access to capital, back & office and inventory planning and scale brands across other channels than Amazon.
Thrasio is a Boston-based ecommerce group specialising in acquiring and developing brands that sell through the Amazon marketplace.
With over 700 people, Thrasio has an in-house team of brand managers, video and supply chain experts along with growth marketers. In the past 24 months, Thrasio has acquired over 100 sellers in the last three years. Categories include anything from parts in automotive, baby & kid accessories, electronics, kitchen, exercise equipment, home & decor, musical instruments, outdoor gear, personal care, pet, toys, crafts and games, as well as yard & garage.
Some of the brands it acquired and scaled include Angry Orange Odor Eliminator (acquired in November 2018, scaled from $2.1m to $21.4m in sales), Beast Gear (acquired in October 2019, scaled from $3.9m to $5.7m) and Becky Cameron Bedding Collection (acquired in March 202 and scaled from $29.3m to $67.5m). One of its latest acquisitions is a brand incubator in Germany called Bonstato.
In 2021, its revenues are estimated to be USD 1.4bn with 2022 revenues forecasted to surpass USD 3bn. In summer 2021, the group raised a pre-IPO round expecting to go public in 9-12 months from then.
Having raised over $3.4bn, Thrasio’s latest valuation is $5-10bn with the aim to at least double that by the time of the listing.
- Total capital raised: $3.4bn
- Equity Investors: Advent International, Silver Lake, Solamere Capital, Harlan Capital Partners, RiverPark Ventures, PEAK6 Investments, Jawes Ventures and Western Technology
- Debt: Morgan Stanley Credit Partners, Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Credit Suisse Loan Funding, Monroe Capital, RBC Capital Markets, Barclays, BlackRock, BofA, JP Morgan, Oaktree Capital, Upper 90 and UBS
The business helps brands to scale via the group’s distribution channels and an extensive external omni-channel network.The group acquires high calibre profitable health and wellness brands. Alphawell Brands uses data and its partner network to qualify existing products to forecast future growth and automate the management of assets once acquired. Scaling brands using the expertise in growth hacking, existing tech infrastructure and an experienced team.In January 2022, Alphawell Brands acquired 96NORTH, a leading scented candles brand with only natural and organic ingredients. The brand has grown 3x since the acquisition, launched new product lines and expanded into other geographies.
The group has raised £3.5 million pre-Seed capital and has secured a debt facility to help with acquisitions.
Founded in 2005, Berlin Brands Group is one of the first aggregators out there. The Berlin-based group has 34 e-commerce brands and sells more than 3,700 products daily. Of the 34 brands, 14 are incubated and 20 have been acquired since December 2020. The Company operates in 28 countries and has recently acquired Orange Brands which had Charles von Abercron and Marvin Amberg as their founders and launched in April 2020.
Acquisition criteria include:
Revenues from EUR 1m to 100m
Average Amazon rating of 4.5
SKU catalogue has ideally less than 500 SKUs with top sellers and high ranking SKUs
>70% of revenue is generated through Amazon
Categories include: Home & Kitchen, Consumer Electronics, Sprot, Garden & DIY, Arts & Crafts, Toys, Furniture and Tools
- Total: capital raised $1Bn
- Equity Investors: Bain Capital, Ardian
- Debt: Deutsche, Unitcredit and CommerzBank
Perch, founded in 2019, it is one of the largest Amazon eCommerce acquirers with expertise in Amazon FBA; but also scales and buys other D2C brands. Currently, there are 70+ brands in its portfolio that include Apparel & Beauty, Health & Wellness, Home & Kitchen and food
- Total: capital raised $908.8m
- Equity Investors: Boston Seed Capital, Eastward Capital Partners, Spark Capital, Alumni Ventures, Tectonic Ventures and Softbank Vision Fund 2
- Debt: Victory Park Capital
Founded in 2020, Razor raised €25m in equity and $375m in debt in a new funding round which it aims to use for further Amazon FBA business acquisitions. Razor believes its key differential to Thrasio is its use of technology to inform acquisitions- with 1m companies evaluated each week. The company aims to target businesses, including those with sales of $1-15m.
- Total capital raised: $559.8M
- Equity Investors: 468 Capital, Redalpine, GFC, FJ Labs, Presight Capital, Jebsen Capital
- Debt: Victory Park Capital, Claret Capital and BlackRock
Founded in late 2020 by Ulrich Kratz as the CEO, Eugen Miropolski (Nordstar) and Christian Harnischfeger, the Miami-based buyer is looking to acquire 20 brands per year. The focus is on quality over quantity. Categories of focus include personal care, pet care, household products, juvenile and baby. The aim is to grow brands 20-40% per year. Currently 12 brands have been acquired across Germany, UK and the US. Every LoI is approved by the Investment Committee before being offered to the seller. The group has more than 45 employees.
70-80% of the revenue needs to come via Amazon with the aim to also help the brand scale outside Amazon incl. Walmart, Etsy and Ebay.
The revenue size needs to be above $1m with Cost of Goods Sold accounting to less than 30% and 20% EBITDA margin. Low seasonality is another key factor when scouting for brands.
Deal sourcing is done with a mix of broker deal flow, attending conference, scraping Amazon and PR.
- Total capital raised: $325m
- Equity Investors: DIA Management, 166 2nd Financial Services, Nordstar and Benvolio Group
- Debt: Crayhill Capital Management ($300m in debt)
Elevate Brands focuses on acquiring Amazon brands in the North Americas, UK and EU. With a focus on the Pet, Grocery and Supplement facets, Elevate Brands has a portfolio of 25+ with an average post-acquisition growth of 100%
- Total capital raised: $372.5M
- Equity Investors: FJ Labs, Accelprise, Mons Investment, Novel TMT Ventures, Soroban Capital Partners, Upper90
The world’s largest consumer-focused private equity firm, L Catterton, has backed SellerX to acquire Amazon FBA businesses. Its current portfolio is 30+ brands though it plans to double that number by using its in-depth knowledge in production, eCommerce and operations to buy and scale new leading brands in the Homeware, baby, Pets, Health, Beauty, Fitness and other staples
- Total capital raised: $766M
- Equity Investors: L Catterton, Felix Capital, Dofina, Village Global and Cherry Ventures
- Debt: 83North, BlackRock and Victory Park Capital
Not only does Heyday acquire and scale eCommerce brands, but it also offers advice on raising capital and growing a business
- Total capital raised: $800M
- Equity Investors: General Catalyst, Koshla Ventures, PremjiInvest, The Raine Group, Victory Park Capital
Mantaro Brands is a Munich-based aggregator helping shape and accelerate a new era of ecommerce growth by acquiring Amazon FBA brands that are sustainable and inclusive. Their goal is to help brands realize their long-term potential and give business owners the freedom to pursue their next big idea. The Mantaro team, full of seasoned experts, prides themselves on a transparent and efficient buying process. They typically close deals within 30 days.
Mantaro Brands looks across product categories and seeks purpose-driven and environmentally-conscious brands they think can have long-term impacts. They acquire brands that have a minimum of $500K in annual seller’s earnings, with a sweet spot of $5M.
Forest is an aggregator that works solely with Japanese brands that create unique, sustainable, and high-quality products with a focus on traditional Japanese culture and customs. This company aims to help authentic Japanese brands adopt new technologies and expand their operations into the global market. Forest is planning to purchase over 300 successful e-commerce brands with $1 to 5 million in annual sales revenue and grow them through their use of large-scale marketing techniques, advanced inventory planning, and sales optimisation.
- Total capital raised: $8m
- Equity Investors: The University of Tokyo Edge Capital Partners (UTEC) and Nordstar Partners
Factory 14 is based in Luxembourg and has a well-rounded team of ex PE, VC and marketplace professionals as founders. It has raised $200m (mostly debt) to acquire brands on Amazon. One of the acquisitions included Pro Bike Tool, a cycling category champion.
Criteria include revenue being predominantly from Amazon FBA, with $500k annual sales as the minimum threshold.
Positive revenue growth on a year-on-year basis and strong margins..
At least 12 months of operating history.
Categories include health, personal care, sports, children and pets, home & kitchen, as well as garden.The focus is on European and North American registered businesses.
- Total capital raised: $200m
- Equity Investors: Venture Friends, DN Capital and DMG Ventures
- Debt: Victory Park Capital
Focussed on eCommerce brands in the healthier lifestyle categories- such as supplements or personal care, Grove has a portfolio of 25+ and over $500m in sales. The company also offers GMA service, which helps eCommerce brands grow on Amazon through M&A expertise, account management and international selling
- Total capital raised: $175m
- Equity Investors: Palm Beach Capital and Synovus
- Debt: Atlantic Capital Bank, Compeer Financial, First Horizon Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Seaside National Bank and Trust, South State Bank, Synovus, Trust and Wells Fargo
Unlike most, Moonshot Brands buys both Amazon and Shopify businesses within 35 days; with an initial valuation conducted in 48hrs and a formal offer in 72hrs. It offers a range of eCommerce services including growth capital, brand-building, marketing and supply chain management while also offering the founders the ability to remain with the brand to help it grow
The aggregator focuses on North America, UK and the EU. As it was founded in 2020, it has completed its Series A
- Total capital raised: $170m
- Equity Investors: FoundersX Ventures, L2 Ventures, Garage Capital, Outbound Ventures, N49Pm KSK Group, Hippom Lambda School, Twitch and Shift
Founded in 2020, Olsam operates in acquiring UK and EU Amazon FBA businesses. Its business model is similar to other aggregators which involve buying and scaling eCommerce businesses and conducting an initial 6 step process to buy a brand. Its current portfolio includes brands from Home and Kitchen, Sports and Stationery e.g. Peak Coffee and Ottergami.
One of the founders worked at Amazon HQ in London and managed hundreds of EU sellers, as well as his own Amazon business
- Total capital raised: $165.3m
- Equity Investors: Aperion Investment Group and Elevat3 Capital
- Debt: North Wall Capital
With a focus on Amazon FBA businesses in North America, the UK and the EU, Acquco is built by ex-Amazon employees. The company leverages technology to automate due diligence, rapidly onboard brands and access untapped deal flow as well as inform key operating decisions for its portfolio. In less than a year the company achieved more than $100m in revenue by operating across eBay, Walmart, Shopify and Amazon
- Total capital raised: $160m
- Equity Investors: Singh Capital Partners, CoVenture and Crossbeam Venture Partners
- Debt: Aman Bhutani
With $60m in seed and $100m in debt raised, Merama focuses on buying LatAm eCommerce brands and growing them. The team is made up of ex-employees from Facebook, Mercado Libre and Amazon
- Total capital raised: $445M
- Equity Investors: Concentric, Monahsees, Valor Capital Group, MAYA Capital, Balderton Capital, Advent International, SoftBank
Founded in 2020 through Cap Hill Brands has a portfolio of 7+ brands that range from kids toys to healthy food for children. The aggregator operates fast, with a 48hr offer turnover and a team that focuses on marketing, product development, distribution and brand management, post-acquisition
- Total capital raised: $150m
- Equity Investors: VersionOne Ventures and Maveron
- Debt: Victory Park Capital
With a portfolio of 25+ brands, generating over 150 million euros, Branded claims to be the top 0.01% seller and will provide a valuation within 48hrs, and conduct an acquisition within 2-4 weeks. The company uses big data and machine learning to make product trend predictions and optimising acquired businesses, such as warehousing and fulfilment.
Revenue focus $1m to $30m with more than 20% margins
2 years trading history with a positive growth trajectory
FBA sales need to account for more than 90%
Low Seasonality
At least 1 product with more than $50k in Sales
Strong account health
Key areas of focus include Beauty & Personal Care, Health & Wellness, Kitchen & Dining, Exercise & Fitness, Pet Care, Baby Care, Arts & Crafts
- Total capital raised: $150m
- Equity Investors: Vine Ventures, Gabriel Naouri, Target Global, Regah Ventures, Tiger Global Management, Kima Ventures, Lurra Capital and Declaration Partners
Debt Kreos Capital
A next-generation commerce platform that acquires and develops FBA brands
- Total capital raised: $150m
- Equity Investors: i80 Group, Pace Capital and Material
Founded in 2021, Global Bees has already acquired the Better Home for an undisclosed amount
- Total capital raised: $151m
- Equity Investors: Chiratae Ventures, Chrys Capital, FirstCry, Softbank Vision Fund, Lightspeed India Partners and PremjiInvest
Boosted Commerce focuses on all categories except electronics and fashion.
Strong category leaders with high growth potential.
Preference on FBA brands with 80% of revenues generated via Amazon.
Top 4 SKUs should equal 80% or more of the revenue. Profit margin should include 20% or more
Strong number of reviews and ranking data vs direct competitors
The seller should have at least two years of trading history with no black hat activity
- Total capital raised: $137m
- Equity Investors: Torch Capital, Crosscut Ventures
D1 Brands is focused on acquiring Amazon FBA businesses in North America, the UK and EU. Category agnostic. At least 24 months operating history is a must. The aggregator currently owns 20+ brands.
D1 Brands splits its analysis into Brand, Marketing, Supply Chain and Competition Analysis. Brand analysis includes criteria such as high star rating of top 5 SKUs by Last Twelve Months of Revenues plus average star rating across the whole catalogue, Review count for top 5 SKUs, Review of black activity/ any account of product suspensions.
Marketing analysis includes organic search and paid traffic search metrics such as TACOS. PPC strategy and who manages it. Off Amazon growth channels such as Email lists, Facebook groups, Insta followers and other channels. Also what frequency are Amazon deals run at and how well they perform.
Supply Chain analysis includes the supplier count and location, how often has the supplier been changed, product lead times and Minimum Order Quantities, How much leverage to negotiate with the supplier and how much capacity does the supplier have to scale with the brand.
Quality Control process details and latest IPI (Inventory Performance Index) score.
Competition analysis includes:
Trademark protection and sub category rank for top products
Review positioning vs competitors
Average price point of top products
- Total capital raised: $134.5m
- Equity Investors: ID8 Investments, CoVentures and Crossbeam Venture Partners
Forum Brands focuses on the acquisition of Amazon FBA businesses in North America, the UK and the EU. Forum looks for brands with annual Seller Discretionary Earnings (SDE) of over $200k. Strong gross margins, revenue growth and limited seasonality.
Owned products should have more than 70% sales coming from Amazon and other 3rd party marketplaces such as Walmart and Ebay. Products should have high recession resilience, not easy to replicate and ratings of 4.0+ stars, as well as high volume of reviews.
Categories include: Pet products, Health & Personal Care, Patio Lawn & Garden, Home & Kitchen, Baby Products, Sports & Outdoors, Tools & Home Improvement.
- Total capital raised: $127m
- Equity Investors: Norwest Venture Partners, NFX, Concrete Rose Capital and Architech Capital
Intrinsic Brands focuses on buying and accelerating Amazon brands in the Health & Wellness sector- vitamins pain relief & OTC, personal care, feminine care, beauty, oral care, orthopaedics and devices
- Total capital raised: $115m
- Equity Investors: Define Ventures and Link Ventures
The team at Foundry Brands is made up of ex-Amazon employees and other large conglomerates. The company focus on businesses with up to $50m in revenue operating in the homeware, pets, fitness and beauty space
- Total capital raised: $100m
- Equity Investors: LightBay Capital and Monogram Capital Partners
Founded in 2021, Mensa Brands is an investment firm that identifies lucrative opportunities in the Lifestyle, Home and Beauty verticals to help them scale. It offers expertise in brand and marketing, growth, demand planning and process optimisation
- Total capital raised: $218M
- Equity Investors: Norwest Venture Falcon Edge Capital, Accel, Tiger Global Management, Prosus Ventures
- Debt: Alteria Capital, InnoVen Capital
Valoreo is focused on acquiring and scaling eCommerce brands in Latin America. By focusing on brands with high consumer ratings and merchants in high-growth industries, Valoreo offers to value your business for free and conduct a complete acquisition within 5 weeks
- Total capital raised: $80m
- Equity Investors: FJ Labs, Kingsway Capital, Pesight Capital, Kaszek and Angel Ventures
- Debt: Upper 90
Based in the UK, founded by three brothers with an investment banking and venture capital background. Category agnostic with higher than 4 star rating. Very important to see a strong Best Seller Rating (BSR) and a good number of reviews (300+) with a track record of how they were generated.
- Total capital raised: $265m
- Equity Investors: 360 Capital and Fuel Ventures
- Debt: Crayhill Ventures Management and Upper 90
Bentiago Group offers a valuation for Amazon businesses within 24hrs and a complete acquisition within 28 days. The company aims to achieve a 3.8x brand growth within 12 months and a 5.2x revenue growth.
- Total capital raised: $380M
- Equity Investors: CoVenture
- Debt: HSBC Equipment Finance UK
Founded in 2017, Win Brands Group focuses on acquiring Amazon eCommerce brands across North America, UK and the EU and aims to increase revenue by 250% within the first 12-months post-acquisition. The group works with founders to identify areas of potential value creation and offers a 30, 60 and 90-day plan to cover brand positioning, supply chain and PR improvements. Its current portfolio consists of three brands: Gravity which focuses on sleep, Homesick which offers home fragrances and Qalo that sells silicone wedding rings
- Total capital raised: $50m
- Equity Investors: Assembled Brands and Burch Creative Capital
- Debt: Oaktree Capital Management
Focused on building brands in the Asia pacific, Una Brands has secured $40m in seed capital, the aggregator recently bought a Shopify business for $1.3m in the Health & Wellness industry
- Total capital raised: $55M
- Equity Investors: Kingsway Capital, 500 Startups, Presight Capital, MPGI, 468 capital, Alpha JWC Ventures, White Star Capital
- Debt: Claret Capital
With expertise in logistics, pricing, SEO, inventory management and brands, 10 Club focuses on buying and scaling eCommerce brands
- Total capital raised: $40m
- Equity Investors: Fireside ventures, Secocha Ventures, PDS International and Class 5 Global
A specialised investment firm that invests in fashion, beauty and nutrition. The company also helps to enhance and scale D2C businesses by focusing on growth marketing and distribution channels
- Total capital raised: $36M
- Equity Investors: Tiger Global Management, Mayfield Fund, Better Capital, iSeed
The Amazon seller acquisition company Dwarfs, is a scaleup from the Netherlands that entered this market in May 2021. It wants to acquire about twenty companies in one year’s time, having acquired four already. It mainly focuses on vendors that sell products on Dutch eCommerce platform Bol.com, but it also looks at Amazon sellers in the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Italy and France
- Total capital raised: €52.5m
- Equity Investors: FJ Lab, Harlan Capital Partners, and Solid Ventures
- Debt: North Wall Capital
TCM uses Al and machine learning to identify and acquire eCommerce businesses on Amazon, Shopify and eBay. The company also uses this technology to scale its businesses and has achieved $45m in annual revenue
- Total capital raised: $28m
Founded this year, Opontia focuses on the acquisition of eCommerce brands across eastern Europe and MENA
- Total capital raised: $62M
- Equity Investors: Presight Capital Global Founders Capital, Kingsway Capital, Raed Ventures, VentureSouq
- Debt: Upper90
The Mexico-based company hopes to acquire successful eCommerce businesses in LatAm.Though there are many sellers and a lot of competition, Wonder Brands focuses on companies with sales of $5m to scale by providing support in category management, brand development, technology and marketing.
- Total capital raised: $20m
- Equity Investors: CoVentures
- Debt: Victory Park Capital
Recountour focuses on eCommerce brands with passionate founders. Sales have to exceed $1.5m, >20% margins and selling high-conviction products. The aggregator is focussed on US brands and has raised $40 million in debt funding. Six acquisitions have been made so far
- Total capital raised: $3.9m + $40m in debt
- Equity Investors: Lionel Partners and Samaipata
With a focus on Amazon and other D2C brands, Telos Brands looks for Amazon FBA sales to be at;eas 75% of annual sales, for the brand to have excellent product reviews and high organic search as well as sales between $100-500k
- Total capital raised: $2.1M
- Equity Investors: Picus Capital
With a team of ex-shopify business managers, High Five Brands has expertise in supply chain, marketing, data analytics and finance; which it uses to scale eCommerce stores that it acquires. The company buys a range of customer categories but tends to avoid food, technology and apparel. Sales of $2-5m and at least $500,000 EBITDA are also required.
- Total capital raised: $1.3m
- Equity Investors: Amit Sharma
With a focus on Amazon and Flipkart businesses, Evenflow will acquire and scale these businesses with its inventory, performance marketing and platform merchandising expertise.
The company focuses on sellers with top-ranked SKUs with high organic search and fast-growing categories. Performance payouts are also offered
- Total capital raised: $1m
- Equity Investors: Equanimity Investments and 9unicorns Accelerator Fund
Alpha Rock buys and operates Amazon FBA businesses. Their current portfolio is made up of 9 brands which they are scaling through their expertise in the supply chain, logistics, inventory and PPC
- Total capital raised: $138k
Short for “Your Amazing Brand Amplifier”, YABA buys and scales Amazon FBA businesses in Southern Europe. While most aggregators look at FBA brands, YABA is also scouting for FBM (Fulfilled by Merchant) brands. Yaba uses a scorecard approach including the seller’s rating on Amazon, the number of positive and organic reviews, the number of SKUs (around 20 SKUs is their sweet spot, less could even be better). It is very important to have a good retention rate with repeat customers.
20% net profit margins is where they have a cut off with EUR 300k in net profit in the last 12 months.
- Total capital raised: $61.9M
- Equity Investors: Bonsai Partners, 10x Group, JME Ventures, aldeA Ventures, Crossbeam Venture Partners
Goja focuses on buying Amazon businesses and is already growing its portfolio of 10+ brands by utilising its expertise in product development, manufacturing, fulfilment, digital marketing and customer service
- Equity Investors: 3L Capital and Next Coast Ventures
- Debt: JP Morgan
Amazing brands group organises deals to contain an exit and a participation payment on the EBITDA/ revenue of the store. Brands can join the group without selling their eCommerce site
- Equity Investors: Virtual Network
A UK acquirer that exploits data and tech to inform their buying process for Amazon FBA brands
- Equity Investors: Veddis
Founded in 2020, The Stryze Group has a portfolio of D2C brands. Their brands operate via Pull-E-Commerce (via Amazon and other marketplaces), as well as “Push”-E-Commerce (Social Media). The Company is buying and scaling high quality scalable brands.
- Total capital raised: €100m
- Equity Investors: Alstin Capital
- Debt: Upper90
Launched in 2020, Accel Club is a digital-native consumer goods platform. The typical target has $1-5 million in annual sales, 20-30% annual growth, and a 15-25% EBITDA margin.
The first deal includes Deneve, a private label seller of flag pole lights with more than 10k positive reviews and an average rating 4.5+.
The group has two founders, Max Firsov and Nick Tuzenko. Max is the former CEO Yandex Food-tech and founder of Foodfox (acquired by Yandex) with 15+ years experience in e-commerce, is the CEO and Founder of Accel Club. Nick is the former MD at Busfor (acquired by BlaBlaCar) and was previously at Boston Consulting Group.
Investors include various family offices, angels and Genesis, of the largest IT companies in the CEE.
- Total capital raised: $169.8M
- Equity Investors: Redseed, Genesis Investments
Founded by former Amazon Sellers, Dragonfly brings in depth operational knowledge to the Amazon aggregation space. Their mission is to acquire unique brands with a clear value proposition, ideally solving a need people may have. They acquire, incubate and license brands.
- Total capital raised: $500M
- Equity Investors: L Catterton
- Debt: Victoria Park Capital
Aggregators specialize in consolidating and setting up businesses for success, but in the e-commerce world not all skill sets are created equal. For instance, some have highly specialized skills in growing and scaling businesses selling on marketplaces. Others, can prefer to focus on D2C. Ecommerce Brands, on the other hand, brings its competitive advantage to brands selling on D2C and marketplaces alike with its strong leadership and multi-channel approach, further strengthened by a capable team of over 200 people operating over 30 brand.
- Total capital raised: $40M
- Equity Investors: Bearing Ventures
Based in Sweden, GoNorth does not believe in business exits as the conclusion of a journey, but rather look at it as a new beginning. In fact, with the proceeds of their Amazon FBA exit, entrepreneurs can finance their new ventures and reach for higher limits. A lot of attention is put on identifying quality brands and maximizing the opportunities to scale them, all done at the agile pace of e-commerce.
- Total capital raised: $8M
- Equity Investors: eEquity
This American brand has made a name for itself in the D2C beard and male grooming products space, and has now turned into a brands incubator and aggregator. By leveraging the skillset and competencies of its in-house team, Harry’s is planning to become the next big hit in the D2C world.
- Total capital raised: $792.4M
- Equity Investors: Tiger Global Management, Bain Capital, Macquarie Capital
Launched as an organic and natural D2C natural skin care products brand under the name of Mamaearth, Honasa Consumer has been active in the acquisition space since Q4 of 2021, and has been raising regularly since its inception.
- Total capital raised: $52M
- Equity Investors: Sequoia Capital, Sofina
Focusing on high quality and category leaders products, New Vessel is a Korean aggregator going after brands operated by motivated entrepreneurs selling in healthy niches.
- Equity Investors: Naver, CKD Venture Capital, Wooshin Venture Investments
Not all aggregators are created equal, and Riogrande definitely wants to set a name for itself as the largest D2C aggregator in Latin America. Still in its early stages, it has raised over $10M to pursue its consolidation strategy.
- Total capital raised: $12M
- Equity Investors: Y Combinator
Raising over $200M in both debt and equity, Society Brands offers a somewhat different value proposition to sellers looking to exit. Rather than buying out sellers, Society Brands is trying to implement a model where sellers can remain onboard for a longer period of time (when compared to traditional aggregators’ terms).
- Total capital raised: $204M
- Equity Investors: i80 Group
- Debt: i80 Group
With experience spanning across some of the world’s most prestigious brands, Wholesum Brands operates out of Seoul, South Korea. The team brings world-class capabilities and skills to growing and improving the best brands, to make them the most loved by customers.
- Total capital raised: $72.8M
- Equity Investors: Antler, Kingsway Capital, Widus Partners
- Debt: Antler, Kingsway Capital, Widus Partners
Founded in 2018, this privately held brand-holding company’s team currently includes over 60 professionals based in the Philippines, the UK, the US, and China. Profound Commerce has experience acquiring and growing e-commerce brands operating in the Healthcare, Active Lifestyles, Modern Home, and Creative Pursuits spaces. Their team uses brand marketing, inventory planning, bootstrapping DTC from Amazon, streamlining freight forwarding, paid advertising, and other methods and strategies to optimise and scale the companies they acquire. In July 2022, Profound Commerce acquired brands in the FBA Capital Management’s portfolio and brought some of the company’s management staff onto their team.
- Total capital raised: $53M
- Equity Investors: Atalaya Capital Management
- Debt: Atalaya Capital Management
Former Amazon Aggregators:
Raising funding for the Amazon aggregation model is very competitive. Once capital is raised, execution is key, both on the e-commerce and on the supply chain side. Several of the aggregators in the past are no longer in operation, have changed business models or have been acquired by other aggregators.
Boopos – pivoted to being a revenue based financing provider, similar to Wayflyer and Uncapped
Brands United – not acquiring any longer
Diverge Group – pivoted to new business model
Orange Brands – acquired by Berlin Brands Group in September 2021
Plus Ultra Group- no longer acquiring
Primeridian – did not raise any funding and founders moved on
River Sea Network – pivoted to new business model
Thirstii – acquired by Thrasio with the team covering Germany now
Zeelos – no longer acquiring
