Brand Aggregator Flummox Raises $12.9M

Brand aggregator Flummox has raised $12.9 million (11.8 million euros) in a round led by Fasanara Capital, the Swiss company said in a news release Monday (March 14).

With the new funding, Flummox said it will invest in its portfolio, adding at least 15 new brands, and hire specialists to strengthen its proprietary IP in sourcing, operating and scaling brands online.

Founded last year by Olmo Tancredi Cassano and Marc Marshing, Flummox focuses on online consumer brands with yearly sales under $1 million and a “predominant presence” on Amazon or Shopify marketplaces.

Flummox buys and scales these brands across multiple online channels, claiming to turn these sellers into “category leaders” inside of 24 months, while creating “exit opportunities to larger aggregators with similar operational infrastructure.” The company said it targets a pool of more than 400,000 third-party sellers on Amazon alone.

Learn more: Amazon Sellers Find Success Amid Regulatory Scrutiny

“In the context of an FBA Aggregator market that raised conspicuous sums of capital despite an often-undifferentiated strategy, we found Flummox a notable outlier in their approach to market and we are looking forward to supporting Marc and Olmo along their journey,” said Francesco Filia, CEO of Fasanara Capital.

Other investors in the round included Raffaele Terrone, founding partner & CFO at Scalapay, and Stefano Pardi, Facebook’s former head of eCommerce.

In a report issued last year, Amazon said its “selling partners” have benefitted from the rise of eCommerce during the COVID-19 pandemic, taking in an average of  $200,000 between Aug. 31, 2020, and Aug.31, 2021. That was up from $170,000 a year earlier.

Read more: Multichannel Support Gives Third-Party Sellers New Marketplace Avenues

And as PYMNTS noted last week, more and more sellers are seeking alternatives to Amazon’s market dominance, with Shopify emerging as the retail giant’s biggest competitor.

Shopify CEO Tobias Lütke wasn’t shy about that rivalry, saying on Twitter that “Amazon is trying to build an empire, and Shopify is trying to arm the rebels.”