Pace Capital, Material and i80 Group lead financing for previously stealth operator
Suma Brands, a platform for acquiring and scaling Amazon FBA businesses, announced the close of a Series A investment led by Pace Capital and Material alongside a credit facility led by i80 Group. These financings bring the total amount raised by the company, which launched last year and has been operating in stealth mode, to over $150M.
Suma Brands will use the newly raised capital to continue accelerating their pace of acquisitions of Amazon FBA businesses and expand their diverse portfolio of e-commerce brands. The company will also continue investing aggressively in their operating platform for growing acquired marketplace brands into household names.
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“We’re seeing founders of Amazon FBA businesses lay the groundwork for some amazing consumer brands and we’ve been really impressed with what they’ve accomplished,” said Co-founder and CEO Andrew Savage. “We’re thrilled to reward founders for what they’ve built and leverage our enterprise-level e-commerce platform to scale their brands to the next level.”
Annalisa DeMarta, Founder of Lone Cone (the #1 selling kid’s rain boots on Amazon for the last three years and one of the brands in the Suma family) said, “Working with Suma has been a completely different experience than what I imagined selling a business would be like. Prior to meeting Suma, I spoke with a few acquisition groups to hear what was out there and none of them acknowledged the potential of what I had built, which made the relationship highly transactional. Suma understood the brand’s goals and potential and had a strong desire to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes. I’ve always had big dreams for Lone Cone and I’m fortunate I found a partner who has the vision and resources to achieve those dreams”.
Navin Gupta, Co-founder of Turmaquik (a top-ranking Golden Milk brand on Amazon and another Suma portfolio brand) added, “I love our brand and our customers. I want to know that the people sitting across the table from me share that dedication. Suma’s plans to grow Turmaquik are fantastic, but most importantly, I know they will scale the brand while keeping what made it special in the first place.”
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In addition to acquiring top marketplace brands, Suma Brands (whose co-founders and executives also include Matt Salzberg, Founder and former CEO of Blue Apron, Andy Salamon, co-founding investor in Hims and Hers, Danielle David Parks, and Jon Dussel, former CFO of Dolls Kill) is hiring world-class e-commerce, Brand Management, and Supply Chain talent to expand its operating platform. Headquartered in Minneapolis, the company is building a national footprint with remote work optionality and planned offices in New York City and Los Angeles.
“We vetted a number of potential investments in the space, but hadn’t found the right team until we talked to Suma,” said Jordan Cooper, General Partner at Pace Capital. Asher Hochberg, Managing Director at i80 Group, agreed: “Winners are going to be exceptional operators, and the Suma team from the co-founders on down have e-commerce operations in their DNA. They’re a tested team who have proven their ability to rapidly scale e-commerce businesses.”
Suma is equally excited about the partners they’ve assembled around their business. “It’s just a great group of talented and fun people,” said Savage, “we never forget that behind amazing consumer brands are passionate people, and it’s energizing to bring together the right group of founders, operators and e-commerce veterans obsessed with building big consumer brands on top of the incredible foundations we’re acquiring from the entrepreneurs who started them.”
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