Seattle-based Cap Hill Brands, which raised more than $250 million to acquire and grow e-commerce shops, has merged with Juvo+, a company that focuses on developing and selling its own products online.
Terms of the all-stock deal were not disclosed. The combined company is now known as Infinite Commerce and will be led by Steve Neufer, a Seattle-based executive who founded Juvo+.
Kevin Saliba and Jason LeeKeenan, the longtime Seattle-area tech leaders who co-founded Cap Hill Brands in 2020, are now executive co-chairmen of Infinite Commerce.
The deal comes amid a slowdown in e-commerce growth following a pandemic-driven boom in online shopping, and rising seller fees on platforms including Amazon.
Other firms that followed a similar “roll-up” playbook to Cap Hill Brands — acquiring brands and supercharging their online businesses on Amazon or other marketplaces — have struggled in recent months. Amazon aggregator Thrasio, which raised around $3 billion, filed for bankruptcy last month, and Benitago, another e-commerce acquirer, filed for bankruptcy in August.
Perch and Razor Group announced this week that they are also merging.
Cap Hill Brands aimed to create what LeeKeenan and Saliba described as a next-generation consumer packaged goods company. The plan was to find existing brands selling everything from children’s games to educational products; acquire the companies; and then boost them with centralized operations, technology infrastructure and management.
The company acquired more than 35 brands over the past three years. But executives said they needed more horsepower for product development.
“To create a great next-generation consumer product company, you have to be great at acquiring brands — and you also have to be great at launching new products,” LeeKeenan said.
LeeKeenan said Juvo+ has a “sophisticated” method of identifying gaps in the market and potential product solutions.
LeeKeenan and Saliba, former executives at Zulily and other tech companies, said they’ve been talking with with Neufer about a possible deal over the past year.
The combined company has more than $250 million in annual revenue and is profitable. It owns more than 50 brands.
Juvo was headquartered in Southern California and has operations in China. Infinite now employs around 400 people globally.
Cap Hill Brands, which operated virtually, raised more than $250 million in debt and equity from investors including BlackRock, VersionOne Ventures, Maveron, and Victory Park Capital, which also backed Perch and Razor Group.
