Amazon Aggregators Continue To See The Money As Society Brands Secures $204M

Society Brands is the latest Amazon aggregator to secure a large capital raise. The Canton, Ohio-based company announced Wednesday it raised $204 million in a mix of debt and equity led by i80 Group.

The aggregator space saw strong interest last year from investors as pandemic-fueled online buying exploded. Several aggregators were able to secure rounds of more than $100 million—including Walpole, Massachusetts-based Thrasio with the initial closing of a $1 billion Series D at a reported valuation of between $5 billion and $10 billion in October.

Others to raise huge swaths of cash include Paris-based Branded, Berlin-based Razor Group, Boston-based Perch, Luxembourg-based factory14, New York-based Elevate Brands, London-based Heroes, Minnesota-based Suma Brands, Berlin-based SellerX and Berlin Brands, and London-based Olsam.

Investors seem to be eyeing the ability of these aggregators to optimize these brands’ channel and sale opportunities while also providing enhanced retail expertise and product development. The benefit for the brands is that aggregators provide an exit for the merchants themselves—who may otherwise be too small to sell their brands.

A couple of venture investors who spoke with Crunchbase News in recent weeks predicted that the current rockiness of the market may hinder businesses such as marketplace aggregators due to the large amounts of cash necessary for them to make acquisitions.

But Society Brands’ capital raise seems to indicate investors’ interest is still there—for now at least.

Illustration: Dom Guzman

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