The old saying goes: if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Diapers.com parent company (Quisidi) founder Marc Lore, who sold Diapers.com to Amazon for $550 M four years ago, is now looking to add a third part to that expression—then take their money and come back to try and beat ‘em again.
Lore is expected to announce a fresh round of funding for his new e-commerce start-up Jet later today (September, 17), reports The Wall Street Journal. Jet has raised $20 million from form Facebook backers Western Technology Investment and Google. Silicon Valley bank kicked in additional $5 million.
Though the specific innovation Jet plans to bring to e-commerce are not yet known, Lore has intimated that part of the new site’s pricing model will factor in data about the customer’s actual, physical proximity to the goods they are ordering—with an eye towards getting goods to buyers quicker and cheaper.
“What are the hidden costs in e-commerce? Are there aspects of e-commerce that don’t make sense? And most importantly, how do we expose these inefficiencies and empower customers to eliminate them?” Lore asked on his blog.
Jet.com will face strong competition for Amazon’s large and growing network of warehouses that allow them to move goods quickly and at a low cost.
The Montclair, N.J., firms is reportedly planning to launch in early 2015 and will be limited to sales in the U.S.
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