Executive Briefing
Why there still haven’t been more billion-dollar acquisitions for direct-to-consumer commerce startups
Inside: Why Harry’s wants to buy your brand. Why two ex-Glossier execs stopped trying to create them. And how Facebook wants to eat it all.
By Dan Frommer on Saturday, May 8, 2021 at 8:00 am
Almost five years after Unilever bought Dollar Shave Club for $1 billion, the deal still looks like an anomaly.
Despite a pandemic that accelerated the shift toward e-commerce, and continued market share shifts away from giant, legacy brands, there hasn’t been a billion-dollar-plus buying spree of direct-to-consumer e-commerce companies.
Why not?
Similar to when I wrote about this topic two years ago — one of the first articles in this publication — the strongest new consumer companies simply haven’t needed to sell themselves to cash out investors or fund operations. Warby Parker, Glossier, Allbirds, Everlane, and others have been able to raise capital on the private markets with sufficiently favorable terms.
But there are some other dynamics worth noting.
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