Supercharging the next generation of digital commerce: Announcing our investment in SellerX
By: Felix Capital
Tags: Amazon, Brands, Ecommerce, VC, Fundraising

Since the foundation of Felix, our core investment mission has been to understand how technology is shaping and reshaping our behaviors and transforming the face of retail. Over the last decade alone, various new technologies — from the large platforms which have now become household names, to smaller brands and tools that enhance the eCommerce ecosystem — have upended and defined the modern commerce journey.

Perhaps no company has defined modern commerce more than Amazon, now the largest eCommerce business in the world, with over $335bn of GMV delivered on the platform last year alone and powering about half of all eCommerce in the US.

The Power of the Amazon Platform

In its almost 25 years, Amazon has proven to become not just a powerful sales channel for consumer brands, but a destination allowing people to build large, scaled businesses atop the platform. In doing so, Amazon has created an entire ecosystem for small businesses to both launch and thrive. Giving entrepreneurs the ability to reach millions of consumers without the headaches and complexities traditionally associated with building a brand, such as logistics and warehousing — Amazon has in many ways democratized innovation and entrepreneurship. Today, Amazon has over 2.5m active sellers on the marketplace, with over 25,000 businesses making over $1m in sales and almost 250k businesses making at least $100k in sales.

This massive Amazon ecosystem — and the highly fragmented nature of these businesses — provides a large and compelling opportunity to create a portfolio strategy of category winning brands. We’ve seen proof points of the opportunity to combine brands, and create value through optimized sales channel strategies and brand development. This strategy can be a key liquidity option for sellers on Amazon who have built brands from scratch and have otherwise limited exit opportunities.

Introducing our Investment in SellerX

Today we are thrilled to announce our investment in SellerX, a platform for successful third-party Amazon sellers to exit their business. Based in Berlin, SellerX’s strategy is to acquire and consolidate Amazon FBA (Fulfilled by Amazon) businesses across Europe and North America. SellerX ensures continued development of each business post-acquisition by providing unmatched operational, branding, and growth expertise.

SellerX proposition

We’re teaming up with our friends at Cherry Ventures and Triple Point Capital to back the company with €100m in capital to support the SellerX acquisition strategy. We couldn’t be more excited to have won the trust of Malte and Philipp, who bring extensive industry and private equity experiences to this strategy and a unique perspective on what it means to grow and scale brands.

SellerX, at the intersection of Felix themes

At Felix, we are investing in three types of businesses: digital brands, marketplaces, and enabling technologies. When we met Malte and Philipp, it was clear that the proposition they’re building fell at the intersection of these core areas. One of our key thesis is around the rise of commerce enablement platforms as a playground for entrepreneurship. As a team, we have observed first-hand the power and dominance of the Amazon platform, and for some time have been exploring various business models that are meaningfully exposed to this trend.

On top of this, we are drawn to SellerX’s unique focus on brand building. Leveraging their prior expertise in eCommerce, the team has a strong understanding of what it takes to build brands and spark customer love. Starting with a sharp eye for identifying strong brands on Amazon, we also believe that the company’s playbook of improvements in product, marketing, and distribution will make them the home to a portfolio of excellent brands with the potential to become widely recognized brand names. We are thrilled to be part of the journey of designing and executing a world-class brand strategy through the SellerX platform.