From Amazon FBA to Social Commerce: How this Startup is Disrupting the Next Decade of Online Retail

The following post was written and/or published as a collaboration between Benzinga’s in-house sponsored content team and a financial partner of Benzinga.

The Stryze Group founders: Sebastian Funke, Mark Hartmann, Sascha Krause and Dr. Taro Niggemann.

Image Copyright: Sina Weihrauch

Stryze was founded based on a simple concept: A brand that does well in one channel won't necessarily do so in others. From Amazon FBA and social commerce to dominating the world, there is always room for improvement. 

A booming, nascent industry

With the revolution that Direct-to-Consumer commerce has experienced over the last decade, Amazon's success demonstrates that, if anything, there is a need for competition and diversity in the space. Experienced players have also noticed what can only be described as a gold rush among well-funded startups chasing the roll-up of Amazon third-party sellers.

As one of them, Stryze stands out as a global powerhouse directing a broad portfolio of brands in Europe, America and China. Competing in industries as diverse and complex as fitness, lifestyle, outdoors and animal food, the German company seems to have perfected the process of acquiring brands and leading them to succeed. 

Stryze is a D2C specialized e-commerce company, focusing on being the top of their league when it comes to marketing and products. With a dominant and long-lived expertise across the international D2C value chain, the company focuses on creating, operating and scaling D2C brands on Amazon as well as on social commerce.

What makes Stryze unique?

In an interview with us, CEO Sebastian Funke let out some of the secrets behind Stryze's recipe. When asked about what makes their process unique, he commented:

"We allocated significant time, money and manpower towards developing our own data and technology infrastructure to not only support the business along the value chain but also to execute all business decisions based on data. We use data and technology to identify, analyze, monitor and advance our existing brands as well as those which have been recently acquired." 

Stryze's innovative approach has certainly lead them to success: In a seed round, the startup managed to raise over $100 million at the end of 2020, the year when eCommerce proved its status as a new reality. Sebastian emphasizes the importance of turning this capital into fuel to exponentially grow through the acquisition of other FBA businesses, as well as scaling the group’s own brands. 

When asked about this strategy, Funke adds:

"The main pillars of (the strategy) are the expansion of our current product portfolio for our existing brands, expanding to other platforms as well as further internationalization." He emphasizes: "This does not only include distribution of brands through Amazon. Our vision is much bigger. We distribute products through various online platforms. Here we differentiate between pull marketing platforms such as Amazon (or eBay, Otto.de, jd.com, etc.) and push marketing platforms such as social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and the like. We are convinced that these two kinds of platforms work very differently for D2C brands. That is why we develop brands for specific channels. Brands typically either work well in the pull marketing environments (that are driven by price, conversion rates and are highly targeted) or on the push marketing platforms (which demand high brand awareness, high marketing cost and consequently much higher sales prices)."

And, regarding the type of brands Stryze tries to scout:

"You can break it down into an appealing brand (design, brand name, consistent product portfolio) and products with a certain USP. Furthermore, the brand should show a minimum operating history (ideally, at least two years), a certain size (ideally €1MM run rate) and a promising EBITDA margin. Finally, we also need to see a relevant revenue and profit growth margin, together with synergy potentials. However, we always enjoy speaking to founders and getting to know how we could work together now or in the future."

A lighthouse for entrepreneurs

For the average entrepreneur, the road towards growth and success is paved with uncertainty and doubt. Regardless of business gurus and books' promises, things are rarely set in stone in real markets, and the avenues to thrive are always dynamically shifting. 

In this climate, companies like Stryze prove that, more than ever, those that start brands that manage to establish themselves have a clear path to going international or even global. Like Sascha Krause, COO of Stryze points out, "For Instagram stars, Stryze means the rise from being an influencer to being an entrepreneur with their own product". 

Indeed, having companies and aggregators like Stryze lead the way when it comes to tackling the commercial markets can mean the world to creators. It is possible that, in the future, we'll see a generation of influencers and content makers that can monetize their creations without having to operate businesses actively. In this way, the talent of the future might not need (and possibly even want) business acumen and can be left to do what it knows how to do best.

The preceding post was written and/or published as a collaboration between Benzinga’s in-house sponsored content team and a financial partner of Benzinga. Although the piece is not and should not be construed as editorial content, the sponsored content team works to ensure that any and all information contained within is true and accurate to the best of their knowledge and research. This content is for informational purposes only and not intended to be investing advice.