Private equity firm Craton Equity Partners has led the Gazelle’s USD22 million series D round of financing. Gazelle’s current investors, Physic Ventures (www.physicventures.com), Venrock Associates (www.venrock.com) and RockPort Capital (www.rockportcap.com) also participated in this financing.
In 2010, Gazelle’s business continued to soar, achieving a 155% year-over-year growth in revenues as the company has attracted more than 175,000 Customers to trade in or recycle used electronics. Fuelled by its largest financing to date, Gazelle is focused on rapidly accelerating its plans to market its service to mass media. The new funding also enables Gazelle to make additional investments in key areas of the business, including operational capital, marketing, inventory acquisition and additional processes that will continue to enhance the company’s industry-leading customer experience.
"We are impressed by Gazelle’s innovative business model which serves a vast consumer market while having a positive environmental impact," says David Asarnow, Principal at Craton Equity Partners, who joins the Gazelle board of directors. "Gazelle has a world class team and unlimited opportunity for growth, and fits our model for investing in forward thinking companies with progressive models and technology to address climate change. We look forward to supporting their continued success."
According to Gazelle co-founder and CEO, Israel Ganot, Craton Equity Partners’ expertise in the field of clean technology and environmentally responsible consumption will help further Gazelle’s vision of reCommerce. "Our goal is to completely transform the way consumers think about the consumer electronics they buy, sell and own. This financing will be critical in helping us market our vision of consumption and reCommerce to more people, grow and build our catalog and continue to provide one of the most satisfying consumer experiences anywhere on the web."
This round of funding is the fourth in Gazelle’s four-year history, with its last round in 2010, led by Physic Ventures. Since 2008, Gazelle has realised aggressive growth, adding over 20 product categories and 300,000 products to build upon its award-winning customer experience. Gazelle was named No24 on the 2010 Inc 500 and No2 in the highly competitive Consumer Products & Services category.
