14 DAY TRIAL // Online groceries may not seem as glamorous a business venture as, say, software-as-a-service platforms, but they could provide an interesting investment opportunity especially if the business is already profitable. At least that's what Stripes Group, a New York private equity firm, seems to think as it has just provided MyWebGrocer, an online grocery platform, with $13 million in a first round of funding. What's even more interesting is that the company is in fact 10 years old and is already sustainable financially.
“Stripes Group completed a $13 million equity investment in MyWebGrocer Inc., a rapidly growing and profitable Colchester, VT-based software-as-a-service company providing leading regional and national grocery store chains and consumer packaged goods companies with online commerce and digital media services,” the to-the-point blog post announcement reads.
Investment company Stripes Group specializes in late-stage funding, and this is certainly the case here, but it also invests mainly in enterprises that have had no previous outside funding from specialized firms. It usually invests between $10 million and $150 million so the MyWebGrocer deal was on the lower end of the scale.
MyWebGrocer provides an online shopping platform for grocery chains and also has an advertising platform integrated with the service. The Vermont-based company runs the websites with the groceries providing the distribution and the actual products. The platform is highly customizable, ranging from a static web page to a fully functioning online shop. The company makes money from the fees the grocery chains pay but also from the targeted advertising it displays on the sites through its own advertising network.
The sites it serves reach 4 million customers in the US and are used by 5,000 groceries across the country. As part of the deal, Dan Marriott, the managing partner of Stripes Group, will get a seat on the MyWebGrocer board of directors.