Unilever announced it had acquired the online-first subscription razor startup Dollar Shave Club yesterday, in what was reportedly a $1B deal.
That would rank Dollar Shave Club’s acquisition as the 4th largest e-commerce acquisition since 2009, according to CB Insights data. Dollar Shave Club would be one of only two consumer packaged goods-focused e-commerce startups on the ranking of the top 15 e-commerce M&A deals since 2009. The $1B price tag means it is double the size of Quidsi‘s exit. Quidsi was the owner of Diapers.com and Soap.com, which was acquired by Amazon in 2011 at a $545M valuation.
Ranked first on our ranking of top M&A deals since 2009 is Avito, a Russian online classifieds site. Naspers, a South Africa-based multinational media company, invested a $1.2B a corporate majority into Avito in 2015, valuing the company at up to $2.7B.
Rounding out the top three e-commerce M&A transactions are Alibaba’s 2015 deal taking a majority stake in Lazada, a Southeast-Asia focused e-commerce platform, which valued Lazada at $1.5B, followed by Amazon’s 2009 acquisition of Zappos. Amazon’s offer for Zappos was originally valued at $928M, but an increase in Amazon’s stock price before the deal closed boosted the deal to $1.2B.
Tying Dollar Shave Club for fourth place is Ebates, which Rakuten acquired in 2014 at a $1B valuation. See the full top 15 list below.
| Rank | Company | Date | Valuation ($M) | Acquirer |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Avito | Q4’15 | $2,729 | Naspers |
| 2 | Lazada | Q2’16 | $1,500 | Alibaba Group |
| 3 | Zappos | Q3’09 | $1,200 | Amazon |
| 4 | Ebates | Q3’14 | $1,000 | Rakuten |
| 4 | Dollar Shave Club | Q3’16 | $1,000 | Unilever |
| 6 | Bluestem Brands | Q4’14 | $565 | Capmark Financial Group |
| 7 | Privalia | Q2’16 | $560 | Vente Privee |
| 8 | Net-A-Porter | Q2’10 | $530 | Richemont |
| 9 | Quidsi (Diapers.com) | Q2’11 | $545 | Amazon |
| 10 | Buscape | Q3’09 | $376 | Naspers |
| 11 | Netretail Holdings | Q2’12 | $360 | Naspers |
| 12 | Trunk Club | Q3’14 | $350 | Nordstrom |
| 13 | RueLaLa.com | Q4’09 | $350 | GSI Commerce |
| 14 | Myntra | Q2’14 | $343 | Flipkart |
| 15 | Tiny Prints | Q1’11 | $333 | Shutterfly |
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