Dive Temporary:
- After signing a deal in July, Knix on Monday mentioned its acquisition by Essity, a global well being and hygiene model, has closed. Essity acquired 80% of Knix’s shares for $320 million, the corporate mentioned in a press launch.
- Joanna Griffiths, the corporate’s founder and CEO, will stay as president of Knix and proceed to handle the model. Griffiths owns the remaining 20% of Knix’s shares.
- The acquisition values Knix at $400 million, in line with the discharge. The model mentioned it now has greater than 2 million clients.
Dive Perception:
Previous to the Essity deal, Knix used fundraising to scale the model. In Might 2021, the corporate raised $40 million from personal fairness agency TZP Group, mannequin and entrepreneur Ashley Graham and different buyers. The corporate mentioned it might use the funds to construct its model, improve its digital match program, increase its retail presence in North America and create new merchandise.
A couple of 12 months in the past, the Canadian firm launched its first bodily shops within the U.S. after the COVID-19 pandemic pressured the model to postpone its retailer launch plans and rethink its entry into the swimwear class. Knix made its U.S. brick-and-mortar debut in Santa Monica, California, however the firm already had two shops in Canada.
Knix isn’t the one leakproof underwear model to get acquired this 12 months. After making an preliminary funding in 2019, Kimberly-Clark, which owns Kleenex, Huggies and Kotex, acquired a majority stake in Knix competitor Thinx in February. Just a few months later, Maria Molland stepped down as Thinx CEO and was changed by Johnson & Johnson govt Meghan Davis.
With the assistance of its new proprietor, Thinx this summer time renamed its youth line of interval underwear from “Thinx BTWN” to “Thinx Teenagers.” The corporate additionally diminished the value level for its teen assortment to as little as $16 and deliberate to distribute the menstrual underwear by way of its personal web site, Goal.com and Walmart.com.
Outdoors of interval underwear, the broader DTC intimates market has seen a flurry of offers prior to now 12 months. In early October 2021, Parade raised $20 million in Sequence B funding and introduced plans to open its first offline “expertise” in New York Metropolis. That very same month, Blackstone purchased a majority stake in Spanx, which valued the womenswear model at $1.2 billion.
This 12 months in March, Victoria’s Secret bought a minority stake in swimwear model Frankie’s Bikinis for $18 million. And the next month, DTC lingerie model ThirdLove purchased Package Undergarments in its first acquisition, planning to relaunch the model as Package Undergarments for ThirdLove.
