- General
- March 26, 2021
- 4 minutes read
Sports E-Tailer Fanatics Raises $320M, Doubles Valuation To $13B
Fanatics, the popular online retailer of sports merchandise, has raised a new funding round of $320 million that values it…
Fanatics, the popular online retailer of sports merchandise, has raised a new funding round of $320 million that values it at $12.8 billion, per CNBC. The round more than doubled the company’s valuation from $6.2 billion as of its last round now to nearly $13 billion.
Fanatics’ new round came from a mix of investors including private equity firm Silver Lake, Franklin Templeton, Fidelity Investments, Neuberger Berman, Thrive Capital, and Major League Baseball. Major League Baseball is a major sports merchandise partner of Fanatics so it’s no surprise that chipped cash into the company’s $320 million round.
Per CNBC, Fanatics’ global sales are up 30% year over year and the company expects to surpass $3 billion in sales this year. It’s then ideal that the sports merchandise e-tailer has sought new funds to double down on expanding.
- With its new round, Fanatics has now raised a total of $2.4 billion in venture funding, and that makes it one of the highest-funded private e-commerce companies globally. It’s a long way from the company’s humble beginnings as a brick-and-mortar sports merchandise retailer opened by brothers Alan and Mitch Trager over two decades ago.
- Fanatics, first called Football Fanatics, was a brick-and-mortar retailer for several retailers before pivoting to e-commerce in the 2000s. It was sold for nearly $300 million in 2011 to e-commerce company GSI Commerce, the predecessor to its current owner Kynetic. Kynetic’s founder Michael Rubin also founded GSI Commerce and sold it to eBay for $2.4 billion.
- After GSI’s sale to eBay, Rubin took hold of a few e-commerce properties that eBay didn’t need and Fanatics was one of them. Under a new holding company he formed named Kynetic, Fanatics has then prospered much more than usual on the backs of a few billions in venture funding.
Rumors and chatters have flown about that Fanatics is eyeing an exit on the public markets soon. To that, it’s likely that this is one of the company’s last few rounds or even the last it’ll raise before pursuing an initial public offering (IPO).
