Kim Kardashian’s business empire is now worth $4 billion more.
The influencer/mogul’s apparel company Skims has been valued at $4 billion following a $270 million funding round, The New York Times reported Wednesday (July 19).
“It has grown quickly, and we’re so proud of that,” Kardashian told the newspaper. “We’ve had a really good flow of product launches.”
As that report notes, Skims began as a shapewear brand, though it has since branched out into a number of different clothing offerings like swimwear and loungewear, with plans to debut men’s clothing in the fall.
The company is also transitioning from an online, direct-to-consumer (D2C) merchant to opening permanent brick-and-mortar stores, part of an expansion into both domestic and international retail markets.
“Kim and I can envision a future where years from today there’s a Skims store anywhere in the world you’d find an Apple store or a Nike store,” Skims Co-founder and CEO Jens Grede said in June. “It marks the second chapter.”
PYMNTS wrote last week that Skims was pursuing a $4 billion valuation ahead of a possible initial public offering (IPO).
In Wednesday’s NYT interview, Grede declined to go into details about the timing of an IPO but said that investors had been showing interest recently in consumer-facing businesses and that a public listing is still one of their goals.
“At some point in the future, Skims deserves to be a public company,” he said.
Skims first launched in 2019 as a D2C venture but has since expanded its physical retail by working with department stores such as Nordstrom and Saks Fifth Avenue. The company has also established temporary shop-in-shops at Selfridges in London and New York City’s Rockefeller Center.
Earlier this month, PYMNTS wrote that many D2C brands have been able to control the entire customer experience, from product development to marketing and sales.
“However, as the landscape continues to shift, brands are embracing wholesale opportunities to connect with a wider range of consumers and meet them where they prefer to shop,” the report said. “By partnering with retailers, brands can leverage established infrastructure and gain exposure in physical stores or through online platforms with wider audiences.”
Some notable partnerships include Lululemon’s work with German online fashion retailer Zalando, announced a few weeks back, as well as Adore Me’s May collaboration with Walmart to expand its D2C lingerie brand.
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