It’s the company’s first round of institutional funding since its founding last fall.
Investors included Santa Monica-based Crosscut Ventures Management, New York-based Torch Capital, and a slew of individual investors, including Zillow Group Inc. and Hotwire Inc. founder Spencer Rascoff, former Tinder Chief Executive Elie Seidman and Tucker Kain, president of business enterprise for the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Boosted acquires and manages consumer products ecommerce companies with an established presence on Amazon.com Inc. and Shopify Inc. It focuses on companies already set up for Fulfillment by Amazon, or FBA, in which most of an online business’ storage, shipping and customer service functions are handled by the Seattle-based ecommerce giant.
The focus on FBA companies serves two key purposes, according to Boosted co-founder and Chief Executive Keith Richman.
First, it minimizes the logistic complexity of bringing on and integrating new businesses by ensuring many of the target company’s functions are handled through standardized FBA processes. Second, and more importantly, it serves as a due diligence tool.
“Amazon is almost like a third-party auditor,” he said. “It makes it very easy to take a look at the business and understand very quickly if there is something interesting there.”
Boosted has acquired six companies to date, ranging from greeting card business Spark Ink to niche nutritional supplement brand Purenthetic Naturals. It plans to acquire 30 businesses by the end of next year, according to Richman, and a total of 100 over the next four years.
In addition to investment capital, Richman said his company brings expertise in marketing, sourcing, fulfillment and product development to rapidly scale acquired businesses.
He also said Boosted actively tracks the latest developments on the Amazon and Shopify platforms to keep all portfolio companies up to date with ever-changing best practices.
“The ability to stay on top of those and use them to protect and grow your business is something a lot of sellers aren’t able to do,” Richman said. “These platforms are always evolving.”
Boosted acquires its target businesses outright, assuming full control of all operational processes following a founder’s exit.
