Cast & Crew’s Post

IQVentures, a fintech organization, agreed to acquire The Aaron's Company, Inc., a technology-enabled, omnichannel provider of lease-to-own and retail purchase solutions, for $504m. "We are pleased to announce this transaction with IQVentures, which delivers significant and immediate value to our shareholders. While we have performed well in a challenging operating environment, our Board has consistently evaluated the company's standalone plan against other strategic opportunities, including recently engaging with a range of potential partners. With the assistance of our financial and legal advisors, the Board conducted a thorough review of our strategic options and ultimately determined that a sale to IQVentures represented the best way to maximize shareholder value," John W. Robinson III, The Aaron's Company Chairman of the Board. The Aaron's Company (led by Douglas Lindsay and John Robinson) is advised by J.P. Morgan, Jones Day (led by Darcy White and Bryan Davis) and FGS Global (led by Jim Barron, Jamie Baird and Danielle Berg). IQVentures (led by Cory Miller) is advised by Stephens and King & Spalding. #MergersAcquisitionsDiversitures #Markets #Retail

Trying to grow your brand profitably without giving up equity? True Classic managed to do just that. With an initial investment of $3,000 in 2019, Ben, Ryan, and the rest of the team have managed to grow True Classic profitably to nine-figure revenues. 🔑 The key? - Financial flexibility - being able to invest in long-term strategic initiatives and knowing they have access to capital that can handle growing demand 💡 The method? - Finding a funding partner that understands their business, aligns with their growth plans, and underwrites their potential If your growth is being stunted by having to prioritize recurring costs over growth potential, it might be worth having a chat about flexible funding with Wayflyer. Meeting link is in the comments! #DTC #eCommerce #BlackFriday #Q4 #Funding #Growth #Founders

An important reminder for founders looking to exit. Every now and then, a prospective client says something like this: “I’d really like to get a valuation of x.” And “x” stands for… The highest valuation paid for a business in their industry. Ever. Their valuation goal may be expressed as a metric - like good old EBITDA - or a dollar amount. Either way, it’s akin to someone telling me they would like to win the lottery. Which happens, right? I don’t follow the lottery but every now and then a winner is announced. I know it does because I've seen the billboard along the highway. And the same thing happens every now and then on Wall Street.   A company debuted their IPO, the stock rockets and it's a national headline (remember Bumble?). Or a massive publicly traded company acquires a tiny business for billions and the founders are instantly famous AND rich. Here’s the thing, though: This rarely (and I mean rarely) happens. The all-time high record for IPOs was 2021 and it barely notched 1,000 companies. Yet there are thousands of deals done each year and nearly all of them are at what I call market valuations (24,000+ deals were closed in 2021). As a deal advisor, I can’t get you a winning lottery ticket. My job is to give you guidance on what your company is worth to a buyer and then get you the best deal I can. And I'm really good at doing just that. If someone decides to overpay, we’ll both be happy, but that doesn’t happen often either. The people I know who have realized $100+ million in liquidity by selling their company took the deal on the table because putting the cash in the bank is worth a lot (pun intended). The founder waiting for a winning lottery ticket? They’re likely to end up like one-third of lottery winners…bankrupt within 3 to 5 years of winning the lottery. ______________________ I'm Marc Cabrera, a veteran deal maker and private investor. Follow me if you want to optimize your deal making, career & wealth while balancing all with fitness.

With the artists that power the platform under financial pressure and some investors questioning its leadership, all eyes are on Redbubble's upcoming annual general meeting.  #InsideRetail #Retail #retailnews #investors #power #platform Redbubble

We’ve probably all developed a healthy dose of speculation related to the resurgence of the IPO market. However, 2024 emerges as a potential game-changer as notable names gear up for their potential debuts this year. Here are some of the big names we could see go public this year. SHEIN, the fast-fashion giant, confidentially filed in November, eyeing a valuation boost from $66 billion to $90 billion. Panera Bread, after four years in private hands, is gearing up for a public return. Reddit, Inc., a familiar name for IPO watchers, has rekindled talks, pondering a $15 billion valuation. UL Solutions, a safety testing company, delayed its IPO plans to 2024, aiming for a $5 billion valuation amid growing demand for testing, inspection, and certification services. SKIMS, Kim Kardashian's underwear label, valued at $4 billion, is contemplating strategic options, while FinTech firm Chime, valued at $25 billion, might finally make its IPO move after postponing plans in 2023. Fanatics, the sportswear giant, valued at $31 billion, is gradually moving towards an IPO, and Klarna, the retail bank and payments service, in the black with a $6.7 billion valuation, could create more IPO buzz in 2024. Finally, Stripe, despite a valuation dip from $95 billion to $50 billion, remains a notable player, and Discord, valued at $15 billion, hints at potential public aspirations. As the IPO landscape heats up, I’m looking forward to seeing what the year has in store for these companies. https://lnkd.in/dA87QSZU   #ipo #newyear #business #capitalmarkets #valuations

Check out our President & Founder Taryn Jones Laeben featured in Axios latest article on how investors prioritize profitable strategies amid shifting DTC landscapes. https://lnkd.in/ecvwUS-Z #dtc #investorinsights #IRLVentures

This has been an interesting deal - if gone through would have set valuation benchmark for Media Assets valuation and started new opportunities for consolidation to Private Equity to Public. Great coverage by the author and very interesting set of stake holders. Media & Advertising has proven delivered Billion dollar outcomes across decades and with Marketcap of the industry touching Trillion dollar the opportunities just continue to expand. Commerce Businesses are getting unit economics thorough ad funded businesses and clear opportunity for Fintech to drive similar benefits in next 5 years with ability to support 100% digital journey. Excited to see narratives of Media tech Expand and platform aggregating multi billion dollar marketcap. #mediatech #adtech #unicorns

Welcome to Razor Group 2.0. I am thrilled to announce Razor Group's acquisition of Perch, the leading US Aggregator, and the close of our Series D funding round, led by Presight Capital. Razor Group’s acquisition of Perch marks an inflection point for our industry and makes us the undisputable #1 player in our industry globally. Razor Group now operates a catalogue of roughly 40,000 products, across 3 continents, 10+ countries and 30+ channels, paving the way for a $1bn top-line business.   Needless to say, the ZIRP & post-COVID era had a profound impact on the aggregator space, creating the perfect storm for our company. Razor Group had the strategic foresight to capitalise on the tectonic shifts in consumer and financial markets in 2022 by focusing on industry consolidation rather than incremental roll-up of micro merchants; following the consolidation of Factory14, Valoreo, The Strye Group, this strategy is now culminating in the consolidation of Perch.   In contrast to our peers, our focus has been to build the Western response to Chinese vertical C2M models like Temu and Shein, rather than an internet version of P&G. Therefore, our secret sauce has been to invest in sophisticated technology automation to ensure deep supply-chain integration and hyper-fast product innovation cycles right from the start, a prerequisite to making the model work and seeing us develop the industry's leading automation stack. Our differentiated strategy and resulting technology stack is reflective in materially better capital efficiency vs our peers. With the ongoing advancements in AI and LLMs, that work continues.   As part of this transaction we are thrilled to welcome Nithya Grande, former SVP Growth at Perch, as Chief Commercial Officer at Razor Group.    Ready for takeoff! cc: Fabian Hansen Christian Angermayer Chris Bell Christoph Felix Gamon Dr. André Schneider Mato Perić Shrestha Chowdhury Nithya Sabanayagam Grande Dr. Oliver Dlugosch Monika Dubasi Joe Kiernan Maximilian Meyer Zachary Nemes Jeffrey Gordon Alexander Kudlich Ludwig Ensthaler Timo Bartell Billy Libby

In speaking with founders who have been able to successfully get a term sheet this year, many of them were able to do so by showing high repeat purchase rates and already-solid gross margins, rather than talking about how gross margins, in theory, would improve as they scaled. In this piece by Anna Hensel, we speak to Terri Rockovich of Jinx, and Keith B. Nowak of Ten Thousand, Inc.

Zepto is 2023’s first unicorn, but does it deserve to be one? Quick commerce’s business model appears to have takers among investors but valuations don’t seem to be taking financial viability into account. Follow Tanay Parab for more such content. Credits: Money Control #Finance #investmentbanking #investing