London-based Olsam Group, a company that buys and scales e-commerce businesses, announced that it has raised $165M (approx €139.58M) in equity and debt funding in its Series A round.
The equity investment was led by Christian Angermayer’s Apeiron Investment Group and Elevat3 Capital. The latter counts Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund as a strategic partner.
The debt financing round was led by European special situations investor North Wall Capital, from the firm’s dedicated e-commerce lending strategy. Stanhope Capital advised Olsam on the transaction.
Capital utilisation
With the raised funds, Olsam will acquire larger brands from global entrepreneurs seeking a reliable buyer with deep operational expertise for their companies.
The proceeds will also help the company expand its operations team across its core markets. The company will also invest in its proprietary operating tech platform and deepen its brand IP and patent protection across multiple geographies, including China.
Speaking on the development, Olsam co-founder Ollie Horbye says, “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,” adds Horbye.
About Olsam Group
Founded by former business marketplace manager at Amazon UK Sam Hörbye and his brother Ollie Hörbye, Olsam is building a European consumer goods company that acquires and scales category-leading Amazon FBA brands sold across global marketplaces.
The founders believe that brands should be built for the long term. “We want to be the first point of contact for any Amazon FBA operators that are looking to sell their businesses and see their brands go to the next level,” they say.
Olsam claims to be the only operator in the space where the leadership team have started, scaled, and sold multiple Fulfilled by Amazon (FBA) brands. The company, therefore, has working knowledge on how to manage FBA brands in a time of challenging macro headwinds, notably Brexit and container shortages.
How is it different from its competitors?
Olsam mentioned in a statement that it has deep operational expertise, specifically in the Amazon marketplace space. Prior to starting the company, the Olsam leadership team collectively started and sold multiple category-leading FBA brands of their own.
The team has over 20 years of experience working specifically within Amazon’s marketplace team, managing thousands of international FBA brands. These include some of the largest sellers in the UK and the EU.
In addition, the team has also been part of Amazon’s early operations teams supporting the rollout of Seller Fulfilled Prime, Pan EU FBA, and Amazon Business (B2B marketplace).
Let’s talk numbers
In 2020, Amazon’s ecosystem of six million sellers, globally, generated over $300B in sales, growing 50 per cent year-over-year. And in Q1 of 2021, this grew again by 61 per cent, making this ecosystem the 42nd largest economy in the world.
Firms acquiring successful brands on Amazon have attracted around $7B in capital over the past twelve months, with almost 3,000 sellers in the UK hitting $1M in turnover.
Sam Horbye says, “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 while putting the well-being and ongoing success of its firms at the core of its objectives.”
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