Just last week, Unilever closed its deal to buy 5 year old online retailer Dollar Shave Club for $1B. For the owners and investors, it’s a pretty sweet deal – everyone walks away a lot wealthier.
Reports say Founder and Chief Executive Michael Dubin will get about $90 million. Another huge chunk — perhaps 50% to 80% — will go toward venture capital firms that provided about $160 million in backing since the company’s launch in 2011, experts said.
In a blog post after the deal was announced Wednesday, David Pakman, a partner at Venrock and an early investor, said he never saw the shaving upstart as an e-commerce company. The key, he said, is how Dollar Shave Club developed relationships with men, many itching to find an alternative to the high-price blades sold by Gillette and Schick. Sucharita Mulpuru, an analyst at Forrester Research, essentially concurs with Pakman’s take. “I don’t think this is a testament on ‘e-commerce is back,'” she says. “What Dollar Shave built is really unique, and the list is very short of other companies that have assets that are as attractive as they are.”
