Advertisment

Unilever acquires razor subscription startup Dollar Shave Club for $1bn

author-image
CIOL Writers
New Update
CIOL Unilever acquires razor subscription startup Dollar Shave Club for $1 bln

Multinational consumer goods company Unilever has acquired men’s grooming startup Dollar Shave Club that sells razors through delivery subscriptions to more than 3 million people, for $1 billion in cash.

Advertisment

The Venice, California-based company bagged one of the biggest e-commerce deals in recent years, due to its irreverent marketing coupled with low prices, creating a brand with a huge value. “We weren’t looking to be acquired...but they did a really great job convincing us of a few things, including the fact that Unilever can help us get better deals on things like advertising buys and product manufacturing,” Dubin said.

Dollar Shave Club was most recently valued at just over $600 million when it raised $75 million last summer. The startup has raised more than $160 million in total, from venture capital investors including Venrock, Forerunner Ventures and Pritzker.

CIOL Unilever acquires razor subscription startup Dollar Shave Club for $1 bln

Advertisment

Founded in 2011 by Michael Dubin with the backing of the startup incubator Science, the company projected more than $200 million in revenue for 2016. However, the company hasn’t broken even as yet, but may come into black by year’s end.

The acquired company will continue to operate as a standalone business, and Dubin will helm it. For Unilever, it is a good product proposition as it doesn’t yet own a Razor brand. The Anglo-Dutch company owns personal care brands such as Axe and Dove, in addition to a bevy of household names across other categories.

Dollar Shave Club is best known for selling razors, but it has added other products such as butt wipes and hair-styling products over the past couple of years.