Amazon aggregator Forum Brands raises $100M in debt funding

Dive Brief:

Joining other Amazon aggregators in attracting investors, Forum Brands raised $100 million in debt financing thanks to a partnership with TriplePoint Capital, the startup announced in an emailed statement.
The company, which calls itself an "e-commerce acquisition platform," plans to use the funding to expand its global footprint by adding more brands to its portfolio, per the announcement.
The company recently acquired two companies: Bonza, a pet product retailer, and Simka Rose, an eco-friendly baby products company. By buying these brands, the startup said it hopes to widen its global reach and integrate more high-quality brands.

Dive Insight:

Forum Brands' growth plan includes acquiring more digital commerce brands that sell products across a few categories, such as pets, home and kitchen, sports and outdoor, patio and garden, health and personal care, and family. In its financing announcement, the company highlighted its record of more than 50 mergers and acquisitions.

The recent funding comes after the company raised $27 million in equity funding in June from Norwest Venture Partners, NFX and Concrete Rose.

"We're building a first-class software company internally where we are the power user, and our M&A engine is just one of many examples," Brenton Howland, co-founder and co-CEO of Forum Brands, said in a statement. "We leverage technology and data science to curate a highly selective acquisition pipeline from hundreds of thousands of brands, and we now have the resources to take our portfolio to the next level."

As Forum Brands brings in capital to fund its expansion, other Amazon aggregators and digital brand acquirers are carving out market share for themselves. In May, Perch, which also acquires Amazon third-party and other direct-to-consumer brands, raised $775 million. A few months later, D1 Brands, another Amazon aggregator, raised $123 million in Series A funding to buy more brands, work on new products and hire employees. Investors put nearly $9 billion into Amazon acquisition startups from April 2020 to September this year, according to a Marketplace Pulse report.

While investors become infatuated with Amazon aggregators, the e-commerce giant's marketplace growth is outpacing its online store. The e-commerce giant missed expectations for its Q2 earnings, reporting that its online store sales increased by 16% year over year to $53.2 billion. On the other hand, the net income for Amazon's marketplace grew by 48% to $7.8 billion.