Brandless is an American e-commerce company that manufactures and sells products under its own Brandless label. Founded by Ido Leffler and Tina Sharkey, it launched in July 2017 with a selection of 115 items, many of them marketed as healthy and environmentally-conscious. On 10 February 2020, Brandless and key investor SoftBank confirmed that Brandless was terminating its operations. The latest news is that, according to the website at Brandless.com, Brandless will return in Summer 2020.
History
Sharkey and Leffler met while both were living in Mill Valley, California. Sharkey, the founder of iVillage and the former CEO of BabyCenter, had a background in online communities, and Leffler, the founder of several companies, including Yes To, Inc. and Yoobi, had experience in consumer products. In mid-2016, Sharkey resigned from her position as CEO of Sherpa Foundry to become CEO of Brandless, with Leffler serving as its chairman. The company raised $16 million in funding led by Redpoint Ventures in November 2016, and at launch had received a total of $50 million in venture capital from New Enterprise Associates, Google Ventures, and others. In 2018, the company launched a pop-up store in Los Angeles in May. Brandless launched a second, larger pop-up store in New York in October 2018. In May 2019, Brandless raised $240 million as a part of its series C funding round. In February 2020, Brandless announced that it is ceasing operations, citing fierce competition and business model inviability in the direct-to-consumer market.
Business model
Brandless was based in San Francisco, California, and operated an additional facility in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It marketed its foods as GMO-free, its health and beauty items as cruelty-free, and paper products as adhering to sustainable forestry practices. Products' labels consist of only a white box with the product's name and two to five descriptors, such as organic, kosher, or gluten-free. Brandless is a brand of its own. The company operated a direct-to-consumer model which it promoted as reducing markups compared to conventional brand-name items. Initially, Brandless priced single items at $3, or multiple items for $3 total. That policy changed in January 2019 and higher-priced products were offered. In 2019, Brandless began to offer an optional subscription service to its customers.
Awards and recognition
In February 2018, Brandless received the Best NewCo of the Year award from NewCo Honors for disrupting retail markets and donating 250,000 meals to Feeding America. Additionally, it was awarded "StartUp of the Year" by AdAge, one of "The World' Most Innovative Companies in Retail" by Fast Company.
