The founder of the Berlin Brands Group wants to take over brand dealers around the world with fresh capital.
(Photo: W. Schuering / WirtschaftsWoche)
Dusseldorf The rapidly growing online retailer Berlin Brands Group is once again getting fresh capital for expansion. After Bain Capital’s entry just a few weeks ago, the company is now receiving additional growth capital from Ardian Capital. A sum is not mentioned, but according to company circles it should be around 100 million US dollars.
With Bain’s entry at the beginning of September, BBG had already received a valuation of more than one billion US dollars, making it a so-called unicorn. At the same time, it had secured additional equity and debt funding of $ 700 million. Now this financial leeway has been expanded again.
Founder Peter Chaljawski, who remains the majority shareholder together with his management team, not only wants to grow organically with the fresh money, but also wants to buy up other e-commerce brands even more aggressively than before. “With two very strong partners on board, we can achieve our goal of becoming a ‘Global House of Digital Brands’ much faster,” he emphasizes.
There is currently fierce competition in the market for the acquisition of e-commerce brands that are successfully trading on platforms such as Amazon. The model is the US company Thrasio, which has already incorporated more than 150 Amazon retailers with a total value of more than 600 million US dollars.
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In Germany, companies such as Razor Group, Seller X or The Stryze Group take part in this competition, funded by investors with hundreds of millions. But none of them is as well equipped with capital as BBG, which has taken over 42 brands in the past twelve months.
Competitive edge when buying out Amazon retailers
The fact that the new financing for BBG comes from Ardian of all places is quite surprising. Because Ardian was involved in BBG for six years and only passed his 40 percent stake on to Bain in September. When asked, Ardian has decided against the background of the good common experience and the successful development of the company to acquire another stake and thus also to participate in the next phase.
Even without the takeovers, BBG has already achieved a high rate of growth with its self-developed brands such as Auna, Klarstein, Blumfeldt and Capital Sports. The company, which, unlike most of the other buyers of Amazon retailers, operates e-commerce itself, was able to increase sales by more than 50 percent to 334 million euros last year.
Chaljawski founded the company in 2005 at the age of 19 in his parents’ living room and built the dealer from scratch. Before Ardian joined the company, he had no investors and, according to his own statements, has been profitable in every financial year since it was founded.
In addition to the great financial leeway, experts believe that e-commerce expertise is a decisive advantage for BBG. For marketplace expert Mark Steier, it is precisely the deep understanding of the market that can make the difference when competing for branded retailers. And that’s exactly where Chaljawski’s team has a real competitive edge over the competition, he says.
More: Seller X receives an additional 100 million euros for buying up Amazon shops