This Dutch startup that shook sleepy online razor market bags €10M in growth capital

In the latest development, Boldking, a Dutch online shaving brand has raised €10 million in growth capital with renowned (inter)national investors: Slingshot Ventures, Jamjar Investments and several private investors. Over the last 5 years, Boldking has become the European market leader in the online sales of razors and other related bathroom products.

Now, Boldking services more than half a million customers in 11 countries. With this injection of capital, Boldking will further solidify and expand its leading position within Europe.

Rochdi Darrazi, Boldking’s CEO, said:

Shaving has changed. Men shave less often, and they shave more than just their face. This new behavior requires a different type of razor, one that moves along with your face and rinses more easily. We developed such a unique blade, and made it available for different skin types. Additionally, we’ve learned that men do not want any fuss when it comes to shaving, they want: a good shave, ease when ordering online, simple easy-to-open packaging and fair prices. That’s our proposition.

In addition, to the unique razor, Boldking has also developed a compact range of shaving and skincare products. Boldking separates itself from the competition because of their sustainable and societal vision: every product is packaged by a social workplace, the skincare products are produced as pure as possible and Boldking is the only razor brand that has a proactive recycling program for its blades.

Tom Kist, Managing Partner of Slingshot Ventures:

We are thoroughly impressed by what Boldking was able to achieve over the past few years.” “Boldking is perfectly positioned to strengthen its position by focusing on technological innovation, a value-for-money proposition, product extensions and societal and environmental responsibility.

Last man standing

Until recently, 90% of the shaving market was in the hands of only 2 big brands. In 2012, several challengers entered the market, most notably in the United States. These start-ups and scale-ups provided significant competition to the established brands.

However, in the last few years the biggest challengers were acquired by the corporations they sought to disrupt: Dollar Shave Club was acquired in 2016 for $1 billion by Unilever and Harry’s in 2019 for $1,4 billion by Edgewell (parent company of Wilkinson). This left Boldking as the only sizeable independent razor brand in the world, innovating and disrupting the shaving category with self-produced and patented blades and a focus on the sustainability.

Main image credits: Boldking

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