Heyday raises $555M in Series C funding

Dive Brief:

On top of $70 million it raised in Series B funding in May, Heyday has raised $555 million in Series C funding from The Raine Group, Premji Invest, General Catalyst, Victory Park Capital and Khosla Ventures, the company announced on Wednesday.
The company said it will use its funding to acquire and incubate brands, enhance its technology platform and logistics operations, and accelerate investment in its current brands.
Heyday has also hired Navid Veiseh as chief financial officer, Reema Batta as chief marketing officer and Todd Heeter as chief accounting officer. The new executive hires bring prior experience from companies like Amazon, Expedia and Doma.

Dive Insight:

Heyday noted in its announcement that the new executives it has brought on will help guide the company as it scales and eyes international growth. The company just opened its seventh office in China and is on pace to bring in more than $200 million in run-rate revenue by the end of this year.

"Marketplaces like Amazon have democratized e-commerce creation, making it easier than ever before for consumers to discover innovative new products and brands," Sebastian Rymarz, Heyday's co-founder and CEO, said in a statement.

But as Heyday expands its workforce and portfolio of brands, other brand aggregators are also raising hundreds of millions of dollars from investors to scale up too. From April of last year through November 2021, Amazon aggregators as a collective have raised nearly $12 billion, according to Marketplace Pulse.

In May, Perch raised $775 million from the SoftBank Vision Fund and other investors to hire more employees, improve its platform and acquire more brands. D1 Brands, another Amazon aggregator, raised $123 million in Series A funding in August from CoVenture and other investors to hire more staffers, improve its technology, develop products and add more brands to its portfolio. Following Perch and D1 Brands, Forum Brands raised $100 million in debt financing in September to expand globally and bring more brands onto its roster.