Etsy holt sich naechste Finanzspritze
Jetzt geht's richtig los. Gerade gibt's einen neuen Artikel vom Management persoenlich ueber eine Finanzspritze von nicht weniger als $27 Millionen. Also doch.
Accel Partners? Moment mal......Facebook! Und Etsys Logo sitzt auch schon am rechten Platz im Portfolio.A New Investment
I am proud to announce to everyone that we have just accepted a $27 million investment. The funding comes in part from two existing Etsy investors, Union Square Ventures and Hubert Burda Media, and from an important new investor: Jim Breyer at Accel Partners.
Und... Walmart? Hier schmunzelt mlle a.:
Jim currently sits on the Board of several other companies you might know something about: Facebook, Marvel Entertainment and Walmart. Walmart?! That's right. Accel Partners was an investor in walmart.com, the e-commerce arm of the retail giant. Apart from Jim's insight gained from this role, there's no connection between Etsy and Walmart.
Wozu all das Geld? Und.... ganz von scratch und auf eigene Faust geht's wohl doch nicht? Hier die (subjektiv ausgesuchten) Highlights:
- spend $5 million on hardware and hosting in the next two years
- support many other currencies and languages, but to do so requires significant resources: from people to translate the site as it exists now, to providing customer support in new languages
- aim to build an in-house payment system, and to do this properly requires a significant amount of capital investment.
- offer superb customer service, including live phone support; we want to provide our sellers with detailed stats on their shop
Nachtigall, ick hoer Dir trapsen...droeselt den Anhang an diesem Konstrukt doch spassehalber mal selber auf. ;)
Nachtrag: Es buzzt ungemein da draussen... (inklusive unterschiedlicher Statusmeldungen zur Finanzierungsrunde...)
Whether Accel will continue to back the inexperienced Kalin -- or opt to bring in a more experienced CEO to take Etsy to the next level -- is an open question. The startup might just be at that point in its lifespan.
No word on valuation; so we'll take a stab: Last summer, BusinessWeek pegged Etsy's revenue at $12 million a year, and the company reportedly had a bang-up fall/holiday season. So an 8x multiple would easily get them into the $100 million range.
...und Fred Wilson bloggt soweit als einziger, dass der Deal bereits eine Woche alt ist:
Instead of writing a press release announcing the round of financing that Etsy closed last week, Rob Kalin outlines a plan for the second half of Etsy's first five years and publishes it to the community along with the news that they now have the funds to go realize it.
Dann koennen die lang ersehnten Statistiktools fuer Verkaeufer ja endlich kommen.
Noch'n Gedicht Nachtrag: Mir ist gerade wieder eingefallen: heute endet Etsys zweite Userumfrage. Welche Art Daten da abgefragt wurden etc.etc. kann man hier noch einmal nachlesen / nachschauen.
