GOAT began as an online sneaker reseller, but the startup's on a meteoric rise having just landed another $100 million investment round. That gives it a $1.75 billion valuation, sources familiar with the transaction said.
Launched five years ago by college friends to "authenticate" used AirJordans and other collectible shoes sought by sneakerheads, GOAT is positioning itself to be a global luxury shoe and apparel retailer as the brick-and-mortar model falls into decline.
<p>Earlier this year, GOAT <a href="https://dot.la/goat-group-la-2647074186.html" target="_self">launched its new brand campaign during the NBA Playoffs</a>, attempting to establish itself as a tastemaker for its 30 million members. The company, which takes its name from the sports acronym for "Greatest of All Time," has expanded its online store to include new clothes and accessories from luxury brands such as Alexander McQueen and Versace. </p><p>Its mix of iconic brands to streetwear, along with its online orientation, could boost it during the pandemic as fashion trends embrace a sweatpants aesthetic and a shopping-at-home culture. </p><p>Co-founder and CEO Eddy Lu has said he wants GOAT to be a curator and not just a transactional retailer.</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://dot.la/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNDQzMjA1OS9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxNDE1MDkwMn0.QrByeieyxoEc3XBCX4vAAz4lCa1k0xztdl-y5Logvqg/image.png?width=980" id="ea4e7" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="122c8436843ec3f0470ac5dd83235fd1" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Eddy Lu
<p>"Our mission is to bring the world's greatest products together from the past, present and future, while providing a premier end-to-end customer experience with a point of view on culture and style," he said in a statement.</p><p>The funds will be used to expand their market reach.</p><p>Their series E round was bankrolled by Dan Sundeheim's D1 Capital partners, a firm he started in 2018 after leaving as Viking Global Investors' chief investment officer. His $4 billion fund has been pouring money into public and private companies, most recently injecting $200 million into the controversial online trading company RobinHood Financial.</p>
<p>With the most recent round of funding, the company has raised $300 million from venture capital and strategic partners including FootLocker.</p><p>It boasts customers in 170 countries and 13 physical locations.</p>From Your Site Articles
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As soon as I stepped into the new Amazon Fresh store in Woodland Hills an employee asked if I wanted to shop with a regular cart or use their 'dash cart.'
The 35,000 square foot store that opened to the public on Friday is Amazon's first so-called smart grocery store as the e-commerce giant attempts to remake in-person shopping and push into the supermarket space.
<p>The dash cart is the center of that effort. The toy-like cart has a screen in the middle of the handles that walks you through a tutorial on how to process the different items and which also allows you to see the total price of your trip as you're shopping. It's bright green and black and smaller than your average grocery cart with no place for the dangling legs of a toddler. </p><p>I grabbed the dash cart. To start I had to open my Amazon app to sync it to the cart. </p><p>I held my account's QR code in front of a camera affixed to the cart and once scanned, the cart made a pinging sound and told me I could start shopping. Now everything I put in the cart would be charged to my account.</p><p>The cart is not required, though. And shoppers can still opt to go through a checkout stand with a clerk. </p><p>Amazon Fresh opened their store to the public last week after previously being invitation only.</p><p>The Woodland Hills location at 6245 Topanga Canyon Blvd is likely a window into the future of Amazon grocery shopping. It allows customers to shop in-store, pick up Amazon Fresh online orders within the hour and even includes a return drop off center. It comes in the middle of a pandemic in which the online retailer has seen their grocery sales triple year-over-year.</p><p>At the same time, growth of their Prime membership which is key to the grocery store experience is accelerating.</p>
<p><br/></p><p>When I arrived on a Monday morning, the aisles were eerily quiet. Clerks that normally stock aisles or buzz around the cash register were nearly non-existent. But Alexa seemed to be everywhere.</p><p>She's also available at different stands throughout the store to help customers locate specific items.</p><p>The store has a variety of produce, a meat and seafood section, and even a kitchen area where you can pick up prepared items like sushi or pizza. It felt like Whole Foods cafeteria-like layout but a bit less expensive. The chicken tenders looked especially appealing.</p><p>The different aisles carry your typical brand name items like Quakers and Coca-Cola, but there's often signs pointing out items that are locally grown and produced. Across the store, Amazon had their own packaged goods sprinkled throughout, including in the meat and seafood section, which was filled with Fresh-branded options.</p><p>Fresh produce has a number code that needs to be entered into the monitor on the dash cart, once detected and placed in the cart it weighs the item to give the total price. Barcode items are scanned as you place them in the cart through the use of the cameras and sensors placed in the front area of the cart.</p><p>Both options release a ding sound to let you know the item has been added correctly, but the process is hardly seamless. I had to re-enter items like my strawberry flavored Chobani a few times until the cart was able to detect it.</p><p>The cart itself was very small as it can only hold two bags before overflowing with items which is not ideal for a family looking to shop for a week's worth of groceries.</p><p>Yet, the simplicity of the checkout almost felt unreal. To checkout, all I had to do was walk through the dash cart lane. Once I walked over a mat, an automated message appeared on my cart monitor showing my bill. That was it. I was done. But the experience was so new, I wasn't even sure that I paid. I asked the clerk, 'Oh, is that it?" Yep, he replied and told me to watch my email for a receipt.</p><p>I grabbed my bags and walked out, having minimal interaction with humans.</p>
Inside Amazon Fresh Grocery Store
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Boosted Commerce, which hunts for top-rated companies on Amazon to buy, is about to go on a massive shopping spree of its own, purchasing 100 consumer packaged goods companies over the next four years with funds from a $87 million raise it announced Thursday.
The company uses its experience and resources to boost already successful Amazon sellers, hence the name. Rather than gamble on unproven concepts or spend hundreds of millions on research and development, as large corporations like Procter and Gamble have traditionally done, Boosted employees scour Amazon looking for companies with top reviews and offer to buy them and close in fewer than 45 days.
<p>"When you find something that is ranked in the top five and has thousands of reviews, you know it's a good product," explained co-founder Keith Richman. "We're buying them and we're accelerating their growth."</p><p>For sellers, many of whom are mom-and-pops living in far flung locales around the world, Boosted offers a chance to take money off the table and bring in management expertise to help scale their company. </p><p>"We know the space very well," said co-founder Charlie Chanaratsopon. "The sellers are burnt out. Their life savings are in the brand. They are generally excited and pretty relieved [when we reach out]." </p><p>Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) businesses now represent 60% of gross merchandise sold on Amazon, according to Boosted, and there are now eight million third party sellers on Amazon with 367,000 joining this year alone.</p><p>Some merchants have described <a href="https://digiday.com/marketing/amazon-consolidated-marketplace-sellers/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">bullying tactics by the retail giant </a>and lawmakers <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2020/07/29/bezos-cant-guarantee-no-anti-competitive-activity-as-congress-catches-him-flat-footed/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">have been investigating</a> whether Amazon engages in anti-competitive behavior, but Richman says they see the online retail giant as a friend rather than a foe.</p><p>"Obviously we're not afraid of them," said Richman. "Amazon is incredible and when we look at the ecosystem of retail distribution, we look at them as a force to bet on."</p><p>Still, even though Boosted uses the ecommerce retailer to source products, part of its strategy involves broadening a company's distribution to include other outlets like Walmart and Shopify, which founders often do not have the expertise to do themselves. </p><p>Chanaratsopon previously founded Charming Charlie, a national chain of 290 stores that sold women's jewelry and accessories before filing for <a href="https://www.retaildive.com/news/charming-charlies-pending-liquidation-a-reminder-of-bankruptcys-limits/558650/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">bankruptcy for a second time last year</a> and closing its stores. </p><p>Richman co-founded Voi Technology, a leading European based mobility company and previously co-founded Break Media, OnePage, and Billpoint Inc. He currently serves on the board of directors of GrubHub, The Meet Group and Vostok New Ventures. </p><p>Investors in the round include Torch Capital; CrossCut Ventures; Elie Seidman, former CEO of Tinder; Tucker Kain, president of Los Angeles Dodgers; Ken Ramberg, founder of Good Pods; Scott Hendrickson, co-founder and partner, Permian Investment Partners; and Thomas O. Staggs, former chief operating officer of The Walt Disney Company. (dot.LA chairman and co-founder Spencer Rascoff, co-founder of Zillow and Hotwire, also participated.)</p>
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