The Week’s Biggest E-commerce Deals: Zalando acquires rival About You, Loop acquires Wonderment

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This is a weekly feature that runs down the week’s top e-commerce deals. Check out the rest of this week's e-commerce news here.

Here were last week's e-commerce biggest seed rounds, IPOs, and acquisitions of interest. 

1. Zalando, a German online marketplace specializing in fashion and beauty products that operates across 25 countries, agreed to buy rival About You, a German online fashion retailer founded in 2014, for €1.2B, in a bid to dominate Europe’s e-commerce market. The three founders of About You will continue in their current roles, and the two companies will continue to exist separately on the frontend, while seeking efficiencies across logistics and payment infrastructure. Zalando said it expects the deal to generate around €100M a year in synergies and cost-savings in the long run.
2. One, the startup bank that is majority owned by Walmart, is raising more than $300M in a round led by Walmart and Ribbit Capital, valuing the bank at $2.5B, according to Bloomberg sources. One aims to provide financial services to Walmart's hundreds of millions of customers and its 1.6M employees, currently offering installment loans, debit cards, payment services, and early wage access for Walmart employees.
3. Loop, a returns management platform for e-commerce brands, acquired Wonderment, a customer experience and advanced order tracking platform for Shopify merchants, for an undisclosed amount. Through the acquisition, Loop expands its offering with capabilities such as automated shipment tracking, delay alerts, and customer notifications, providing Shopify customers with more unified commerce operation insights and minimized friction.
4. Mirakl, a French software company that enables retailers to launch and manage their own digital marketplaces, acquired Adspert, a German adtech startup specializing in AI-driven advertising optimization, for an undisclosed amount. Through the deal, which is Mirakl's third acquisition in three years, the company aims to target brands and sellers that want to spend money on e-commerce ads through its acquired demand-side offering.
5. Culture Circle, an Indian luxury e-commerce platform that specializes in sneakers, streetwear, and high-end fashion, raised $2M in a round led by Info Edge Ventures. The company plans to use the funds for global expansion, technology improvements, and enhancing its marketplace for luxury goods.
6. Numia, an Argentina-based startup that helps Latin American companies integrate their customer service channels into one platform using AI, raised $3.5M in a round led by Cometa. Numia's platform connects to bank kiosks and tablets as well as software like Salesforce and Genesys, allowing companies to pick and choose which integrations they want to connect. They plan to use the capital for marketing, sales, and hiring, as well as improving and building out their tech.
7. Insider, a multi-channel customer experience platform that enables businesses to deliver personalized cross-channel experiences by connecting data across various channels, raised $500M in a Series E round led by General Atlantic. The company plans to use the funds to invest in its AI strategy and expand its talent base and geographic presence in Latin America.
8. Mark Zuckerberg sold $153.2M worth of Meta shares so far this month, adding to the more than $2.2B worth of shares he's sold over the last year. Meta's stock has risen 82% this year to an all-time high, and the company has reached a market capitalization exceeding $1 trillion, joining Apple and Amazon in the four comma club.
9. Upbound Group, a retail financing company that owns and operates lease-to-own brands like Rent-A-Center, acquired Brigit, a cash-advance fintech that last month settled charges that it had received customers with promises of instant cash advances up to $250, for an undisclosed amount. Brigit's co-founders will continue to lead its team after the acquisition, and the company will continue to operate under its existing branding.
10. Gigs, a Switzerland-based telecom-as-a-service platform that enables businesses to launch and manage their own branded mobile services, raised $73M in a Series B round led by Ribbit Capital. Gigs gives companies everything they need to launch a mobile service in a single platform including APIs, hosted checkouts, multi-currency payments, and AI-powered customer services, shortening the time-to-market and reducing the costs of embedding mobile services into digital products.
11. Snapmint, an India-based BNPL startup, raised $18M in a Pre-Series B round led by Prashasta Seth of Prudent Investment Managers, at what the company claims is almost 3X the valuation of its last funding round. The company plans to use the capital to enhance its technology, launch new BNPL products, and onboard new merchants.
12. Shein's IPO was delayed as it waits for the UK's financial regulator to approve its public offering after it received challenges about the company's supply chain. The Financial Conduct Authority is checking the retailer's supply chain oversight and assessing legal risks after an advocacy group challenged the listing that was filed in June. Britain's Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner also flagged concerns over a Shein IPO over allegations about the company's labor practices at its suppliers.
13. Laam, a Pakistan-based fashion marketplace, raised $5.5M in a round co-led by Disrupt.com and Zayn VC. The platform currently offers a catalog of over 100k items including casual, ethnic, and formal wear from almost 1,200 sellers, all based in Pakistan. Laam provides logistics, supply chain infrastructure, and warehousing to sellers, as well as inventory forecasting technology.
14. Cart.com, a Houston-based e-commerce platform, acquired OceanX, the wholly owned fulfillment operations arm of Guthy-Renker, a California-based direct marketing company that specializes in health and beauty products. The acquisition increases the company's fulfillment warehouse network and expands the e-commerce firm into new market segments.
15. Tulip, a Toronto-based provider of integrated clienteling and POS solutions, acquired Humankind, an e-commerce clienteling solution provider. Clienteling is a retail strategy where sales associates use customer data, such as purchase history and preferences, to build personalized, long-term relationships and customer loyalty. Through the acquisition, Tulip gains Humankind's e-commerce product and its clients, including MM LaFleur and Dermstore.
16. Gen Digital, which operates a suite of cybersecurity brands including CCleaner, Norton, Avast, Avira, AVG, LifeLock, and ReputationDefender, entered into a definitive agreement to acquire MoneyLion, a NY-based fintech that offers banking, borrowing, and investing solutions, for around $1B. Through the deal, Gen Digital aims to extend its identity solutions to offer “comprehensive financial wellness,” leveraging MoneyLion's personal finance platform which offers money management and credit-building services.
17. Fat Zebra, a Sydney-based global payments platform that enables businesses to accept online payments with real-time fraud detection, acquired Pin Payments, a Perth-based online payment solutions company that enables small businesses to accept card payments without a merchant account, for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition will expand Fat Zebra's offering and further strengthen its position across Australia and New Zealand, where Pin Payments services over 13,000 businesses.
18. Aampe, a San Francisco-based AI platform that enables businesses to deliver personalized messaging and user experiences by deploying intelligent agents that learn user preferences, raised $18M in a Series A round co-led by Theory Ventures and Z47. Aampe's platform deploys a unique AI agent to follow each user, continuously learning how that person interacts with the product so that it can drive more optimized interactions for users. The company says its AI agents can serve digital products ranging from sports and fitness applications to fintech and entertainment services.
19. Thryv, a Texas-based provider of end-to-end client experience software and marketing solutions, acquired Keap, an Arizona-based CRM and automation platform for small businesses, for an undisclosed amount. In the future, features from Keap will be available to Thryv customers within the Thryv platform, and over time, customers will see more integrations between the two companies.
20. Interpublic Group (IPG), a NY-based global advertising and marketing services company, acquired Intelligence Node, a Mumbai-based e-commerce intelligence platform, in a deal valued at nearly $100M. Through the acquisition, IPG will integrate the company's data streams into its existing and future commerce solutions, strengthening the company's ability to build and deploy agile commerce solutions.
21. WPExperts (formerly WooExperts), a Pakistani company that offers WordPress and WooCommerce development services, acquired the Advanced File Manager plugin from Modal Web, for an undisclosed amount. The Advanced File Manager plugin has over 100,000 active installations on the WordPress Plugin Repository with a 4.8-star rating. WPExperts plan to implement enhancements to both the free and pro versions including features such as an activity log, a code editor, user role-based access, and group-based access.

Stay Tuned!

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