On April 18, Petsmart announced its acquisition of pet care e-commerce platform Chewy, for a reported price tag of $3.35B. The deal, if finalized, would propel Chewy to the most expensive e-commerce acquisition in recent history (since 2009), knocking out Jet.com, which Walmart acquired in 2016 for $3.3B.
Compared to Jet.com, which relied heavily on venture funding and raised $725M before its acquisition, Chewy had raised significantly less from backers including T. Rowe Price, BlackRock, Volition Capital, and several others.
Both deals highlight the efforts of traditional brick-and-mortar retail chains to build their digital channels, especially in areas that lend themselves to automated refill like CPG which was an early focus for Jet (Chewy offers a subscription option).
In third place we see 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 five 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 value to $1.2B.
Dollar Shave Club, acquired by Unilever for $1B in 2016, is tied for sixth. Dollar Shave Club is the highest-vaued startup on the list to focus on its own branded goods, rather than operate as a multi-brand marketplaces.
See the full list below. Amazon and Naspers both show up multiple times as acquirers on the list.
| Rank | Company | Date | Valuation ($M) | Acquirer |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Chewy | Q2’17 | $3,350 | Petsmart |
| 2 | Jet.com | Q3’16 | $3,300 | Walmart |
| 3 | Avito | Q4’15 | $2,729 | Naspers |
| 4 | Lazada | Q2’16 | $1,500 | Alibaba Group |
| 5 | Zappos | Q3’09 | $1,200 | Amazon |
| 6 | Ebates | Q3’14 | $1,000 | Rakuten |
| 6 | Dollar Shave Club | Q3’16 | $1,000 | Unilever |
| 8 | IronPlanet | Q4’14 | $785.5 | Ritchie Bros. |
| 9 | Bluestem Brands | Q4’14 | $565 | Capmark Financial Group |
| 10 | Privalia | Q2’16 | $560 | Vente Privee |
| 11 | Net-A-Porter | Q2’10 | $530 | Richemont |
| 12 | Quidsi (Diapers.com) | Q2’11 | $500 | Amazon |
| 13 | Buscape | Q3’09 | $376 | Naspers |
| 14 | Trunk Club | Q3’14 | $350 | Nordstrom |
| 14 | RueLaLa.com | Q4’09 | $350 | GSI Commerce |
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