Skip to main content
https://www.highperformancecpmgate.com/rgeesizw1?key=a9d7b2ab045c91688419e8e18a006621

Vision Fund startups Fanatics and Coupang unite to sell US sports merch in Korea

SoftBank chairman Masayoshi Son has repeatedly described the Vision Fund as a club for the world’s most exciting startups and, while even the fund’s own LP seem to disagree with some of its investment thesis, its portfolio companies do frequently come together.

The latest Vision Fund partnership pairs two e-commerce firms in opposite corners of the world: U.S-based sports specialist Fanatics and Coupang, Korea’s largest e-commerce firm.

Fanatics got its Vision Fund spurs through a $1 billion deal led by SoftBank in 2017, while Coupang, was a more recent joiner via a $2 billion deal in November although SoftBank itself has been an investor for some time.

The two companies are teaming up to sell U.S. sportswear and merchandise to consumers in Korea via a 10-year deal that will kick off this summer. The Fanatics range covers NFL jerseys, NBA T-shirts, items from Nike and others. The agreement will see Coupang become the exclusive seller of all Fantatics products in Korea, which is the world’s fifth largest e-commerce market and project to grow further still.

Coupang claims that one in every two adults in Korea has its app on their phone. The nine-year-old company’s CEO, Bom Kim, told TechCrunch last year that the business is “approaching” $5 billion in revenue for 2018 with 70 percent annual growth.

That’s an ideal partner for Fanatics, which is going after a strategy of working with vertical e-commerce companies in a bid to expand its reach and distribution beyond its own network.

The company’s first deal was with Walmart in the U.S. last month, a move that pits it against Amazon, and now it is getting started on Asia, as Fanatics executive chairman Michael Rubin — pictured in the top image — told TechCrunch in a statement:

Marketplaces represent an important channel for e-commerce, especially internationally, and leagues and clubs want their official licensed products available to fans everywhere in the world. Our global marketplace strategy is a way to do just that by offering access to our industry-leading and exclusive inventory, but in a disciplined way that eliminates counterfeits and offers an improved brand presentation that benefits all parties. This is our second marketplace deal and we expect many more in the future.

Beyond this partnership, Fanatics global operations span a distribution center in Hong Kong, a tech team in India and a European hub in Berlin, Germany. The Vision Fund aside, its investors include Silver Lake, Alibaba, Temasek, A16z and Insight Venture Partners.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Uber co-founder Garrett Camp steps back from board director role

Uber co-founder Garrett Camp is relinquishing his role as a board director and switching to board observer — where he says he’ll focus on product strategy for the ride hailing giant. Camp made the announcement in a short Medium post in which he writes of his decade at Uber: “I’ve learned a lot, and realized that I’m most helpful when focused on product strategy & design, and this is where I’d like to focus going forward.” “I will continue to work with Dara [Khosrowshahi, Uber CEO] and the product and technology leadership teams to brainstorm new ideas, iterate on plans and designs, and continue to innovate at scale,” he adds. “We have a strong and diverse team in place, and I’m confident everyone will navigate well during these turbulent times.” The Canadian billionaire entrepreneur signs off by saying he’s looking forward to helping Uber “brainstorm the next big idea”. Camp hasn’t been short of ideas over his career in tech. He’s the co-founder of the web 2.0 recommendatio...
Post a Comment
Read more

Drone crash near kids leads Swiss Post and Matternet to suspend autonomous deliveries

A serious crash by a delivery drone in Switzerland have grounded the fleet and put a partnership on ice. Within a stone’s throw of a school, the incident raised grim possibilities for the possibilities of catastrophic failure of payload-bearing autonomous aerial vehicles. The drones were operated by Matternet as part of a partnership with the Swiss Post (i.e. the postal service), which was using the craft to dispatch lab samples from one medical center for priority cases. As far as potential applications of drone delivery, it’s a home run — but twice now the craft have crashed, first with a soft landing and the second time a very hard one. The first incident, in January, was the result of a GPS hardware error; the drone entered a planned failback state and deployed its emergency parachute, falling slowly to the ground. Measures were taken to improve the GPS systems. The second failure in May, however, led to the drone attempting to deploy its parachute again, only to sever the line...
Post a Comment
Read more

How the world’s largest cannabis dispensary avoids social media restrictions

Planet 13 is the world’s largest cannabis dispensary. Located in Las Vegas, blocks off the Strip, the facility is the size of a small Walmart. By design, it’s hard to miss. Planet 13 is upending the dispensary model. It’s big, loud and visitors are encouraged to photograph everything. As part of the cannabis industry, Planet 13 is heavily restricted on the type of content it can publish on Instagram, Facebook and other social media platforms. It’s not allowed to post pictures of buds or vapes on some sites. It can’t talk about pricing or product selection on others.   View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Morgan Celeste SF Blogger (@bayareabeautyblogger) on Jan 25, 2020 at 7:54pm PST Instead, Planet 13 encourages its thousands of visitors to take photos and videos. Starting with the entrance, the facility is full of surprises tailored for the ‘gram. As a business, Planet 13’s social media content is heavily restricted a...
3 comments
Read more