Olsam, a company which buys and develops category leading eCommerce businesses, has successfully raised US$165 million in a Series A equity and debt round. The equity investment was led by Christian Angermayer’s Apeiron Investment Group and Elevat3 Capital, which counts Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund as a strategic partner. Alongside the equity raise, the debt financing round was led by leading European special situations investor North Wall Capital, from the firm’s dedicated eCommerce lending strategy. Stanhope Capital advised Olsam on the transaction.
Olsam will use the capital raised to rapidly acquire larger brands from global entrepreneurs seeking a reliable buyer with deep operational expertise for their companies. The funding will also be used to expand the Company’s operations team across its core markets and to continue investing in its proprietary operating tech platform, as well as deepen its brand IP and patent protection across multiple geographies, including China.
Founded by an ex-Amazon marketplace team, Olsam is the only operator in the space where the leadership team has started, scaled, and sold multiple Fulfilled by Amazon (FBA) brands. This gives Olsam unrivalled working knowledge on how to manage FBA brands in a time of challenging macro headwinds, notably Brexit and container shortages.
Prior to starting the company, the Olsam leadership team collectively started and sold multiple category leading FBA brands of its own. The team has over 20 years of FBA experience working specifically within Amazon’s marketplace team, managing thousands of international FBA brands, including some of the largest sellers in the UK and the EU. In addition, the team has been part of Amazon’s early operations teams supporting the roll out of Seller Fulfilled Prime, Pan EU FBA and Amazon Business (B2B marketplace).
Globally in 2020, Amazon’s six million sellers generated over US$300 billion in sales, growing 50 per cent year over year. This grew again by 61 per cent in Q1 of 2021, which would make this the 42nd largest economy in the world. Firms acquiring successful brands on Amazon have attracted around US$7 billion in capital over the past twelve months, with almost 3,000 sellers in the UK hitting US$1 million in turnover. With more than half (53 per cent) of product searches now starting on Amazon, compared to 23 per cent starting on search engines, there is a huge opportunity to scale eCommerce businesses across global marketplaces.
Sam Horbye, Co-founder of Olsam and former Business Marketplace Manager at Amazon UK, said: “We’re in the midst of a retail revolution. We feel the Amazon marketplace platform has democratised the playing field of online retail. Small ‘mom and pop’ business owners are taking on the traditional consumer goods giants (Unilever/Procter & Gamble), building defensible category leading brands which in terms of customer reviews, tower above them! Olsam is acquiring and growing the best of these, whilst putting the well-being and ongoing success of its firms at the core of its objectives.” Ollie Horbye, Co-founder of Olsam, added: “Olsam is thinking far bigger than purely buying brands. Leveraging our own experience as Sellers, we’re using this capital to continue to invest in our operating platform and advance our existing brands, by tracking millions of real-time data points on the marketplace. Our platform will allow us to drive continual omnichannel expansion growth into new eCommerce marketplaces like Walmart as well as via social commerce through Instagram, Facebook and TikTok. We’re really only at the beginning.”
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