Gilt Groupe is a New York City-based eCommerce platform that provides daily deals to its community of shoppers. The company offers fashion for women, men and children, home decor, gourmet food, hotels and travel experiences. It operates under CEO Peter Glusker and serves a community of shoppers through time-limited deals. Earlier this year the company raised $138M from investors including SoftBank Group, General Atlantic, Matrix Partners, Goldman Sachs, New Enterprise Associates, Draper Fisher Jurvetson Growth, Pinnacle Ventures, TriplePoint Capital and Eastward Capital. The current article reports an additional investment from GSV Capital Corp. The article does not provide revenue, user counts, instrument details, or stated future plans. Gilt Groupe runs a family of flash-sales sites including Gilt, Gilt Home, Gilt City, Gilt Children, Gilt MAN, and Jetsetter, offering members discounted prices for limited times to drive demand. The company was one of the earliest flash-sale sites and now faces numerous copycats in the space. It is growing rapidly and is smaller in revenues than Groupon, being on track for roughly $500 million in revenue rather than the $2 billion-plus range. The financing reported in the article is presented as a large round that industry observers often see as a precursor to an IPO. The piece places Gilt within a broader surge of social-commerce capital flows, alongside big raises by peers such as Groupon and LivingSocial. No founding year or location is provided in the article. Gilt operates an online sample‑sale site that runs flash sales of designer goods and has expanded into related services. The company has launched initiatives including Jetsetter, an iPad app, and a local daily‑deal site called Gilt City. Gilt has shown rapid topline growth, reporting roughly $50M in 2008, projecting $150M for 2009 but ultimately posting $170M, and targeting a roughly 3x increase toward $450M in 2010 (with commentary that it could exceed $500M). Management has signaled aggressive expansion of Gilt City beyond New York to compete with daily‑deal players like Groupon. Those product and market moves are being positioned to support further valuation growth and a potential IPO as early as next year per the CEO.

Total raised

$173M

Funding rounds

3

Latest round

Equity

Latest activity

May 2011