Advent, SoftBank plow $225M into Merama

Ecommerce company Merama, an aggregator of online brands, has attracted $225 million at an $850 million valuation from Advent International and SoftBank.
 

• Brand aggregators like Merama, which amass portfolios of top-performing sellers on platforms such as Amazon, are scaling rapidly with the help of private backers. Advent previously invested in Thrasio, and SoftBank has staked Perch. Merama expects revenue of more than $250 million in 2021.
   
• Both Advent and SoftBank have raised multiple funds targeting Latin America, which has seen record venture capital investment this year. Based in Mexico City and Sao Paulo, Merama is led by CEO Sujay Tyle, who founded car marketplace Frontier Car and sold it to a Prosus subsidiary in 2019.
   
• Merama plans to use the funds to acquire and expand existing sellers, and to incubate new ones. Globo Ventures, Monashees, Valor Capital, Balderton Capital and Maya Capital also participated in Merama’s latest round. In April, the company raised $60 million in equity and $100 million in debt, TechCrunch reported.

Related Read: SoftBank doubles down on LatAm after first fund tops its expectations

Featured image via imaginima/Getty Images