Thras.io, Inc. (“Thrasio“), the largest acquirer of Amazon businesses and one of the top 25 sellers on Amazon, today announced that it has raised $260 million in a Series C financing led by Advent International, one of the largest and most experienced global private equity investors.
The latest round was raised at a $1 billion pre-money valuation, making Thrasio the fastest US company ever to reach profitable unicorn status1.
Thrasio acquires category-leading Amazon third-party private label businesses, and then seamlessly onboards, optimizes, and operates those brands. The company drives blistering rates of organic growth through best-in-class marketing, product development, operations, and supply chain management.
Thrasio has been profitable since it was founded in July 2018, even while growing at a nearly unprecedented pace.
- In the past two years, the company’s revenue has doubled (on average) every 73 days.
- To date, Thrasio has acquired well over 50 Amazon businesses, including 17 last quarter.
- With over $300 million in pro forma revenue and 6,000+ products, Thrasio is one of the top 25 sellers on Amazon.
- Thrasio now has over 300 FTE employees and consultants across 11 cities and 3 continents and has been actively hiring during the COVID-19 pandemic, adding over 90 new people since April.
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Thrasio’s Secret to Success
“People ask how we’ve been able to grow so quickly,” said co-CEO and co-founder Carlos Cashman. “It’s pretty simple: We build relationships with sellers and others in the Fulfilled by Amazon ecosystem. We’re a resource to sellers to help them grow, and we’re here to acquire their business and give them a well-deserved pay out when the time is right. We pay well in any economic climate and share the financial gains from growing their brands post-acquisition. So far, we’ve paid sellers more than $100 million.”
Co-CEO and co-founder Joshua Silberstein added, “We believe in doing exactly what we say we’ll do. That’s why we close on 98% of our term sheets, why we’ve paid 93% of our earn-outs, and why nearly a quarter of our acquisitions are referred to us by people who already sold their business to Thrasio.”
Driving the company’s success is an incredible team of people, and Thrasio is continuing to hire, growing the team across all functions and locations. “There’s no question that our team is the special sauce here, and we’re eager to keep building,” continued Cashman. “We’ve tried to make Thrasio an exceptional place to work, which may be why we’ve had less than 1% employee turnover.”
Advent Investment
Thrasio’s vision is to build the consumer products company for the next century, and Advent International is the ideal partner for that effort. Advent has over $49 billion under management (as of 3/2020), significant global reach, and three decades of investment experience in the retail and consumer, and technology industries.
Silberstein added, “This is a unique moment in the consumer products space. The competitive advantages that have defined the market leaders for the past 50 years – strong retail distribution, brands that can shape purchase intent, the scale to use TV effectively, and highly concentrated property, plant & equipment – are rapidly becoming irrelevant. The result: a tumultuous $13 trillion market where the next generation of competitive advantages are being forged by companies like Thrasio. We were looking for the right investor – a partner who could embrace our audacious vision.”
David Mussafer, Managing Partner and Co-Chair of Advent’s global Executive Committee, said, “We raised our $2 billion Tech fund alongside our $17.5 billion global fund with the intention of investing in growth opportunities for emerging companies. We’re excited that Thrasio is the first growth equity investment for Advent Tech. Thrasio is a leader in a $200 billion, fast-growing and highly fragmented market. They’re not just enhancing and accelerating e-commerce, they’re helping to revolutionize it. We look forward to supporting Thrasio’s continued growth through M&A and expansion into new channels and services.”
“Our financing strategy has always been to focus first on finding the right partner, and to let everything else follow from that.” said Cashman. “The Advent team is extremely smart and easy to work with, and every time they said they’d do something, they did it. With Advent as a partner, Thrasio will be able to accelerate its growth, acquire larger businesses, launch new products, and form meaningful strategic partnerships.”
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Living in the Amazon(.com)
Amazon itself has been a hot topic, and Thrasio is frequently asked for a reaction when news is published. Silberstein noted, “A misunderstood detail about Amazon often translates to an alarmist headline, but stories about Amazon’s contributions to society are decidedly infrequent. Amazon’s Third Party Seller program has enabled tens of thousands of entrepreneurs to become millionaires and may be the greatest wealth creation platform in history, but not much is written about that.”
President Danny Boockvar added, “What household has not been grateful that Amazon has been able to stay up and running during COVID, remaining a trusted and price-conscious solution while meeting the unprecedented needs of people who have been unexpectedly stuck at home? It is truly Herculean what Amazon has accomplished over the last four months.”
“It’s rare that you come across a company like Thrasio. As they displace the consumer products giants of the past – while reinventing omnichannel commerce for the future – it won’t be long until people are comparing them to transformative companies like Apple or Tesla,” said Jason Finger, Chairman, Upper90 and Founder of Seamless (NYSE:GRUB).
