Wayfair.com Raises $36 Million to Fuel Growth of Joss & Main -- Fastest Growing Private Sale Site for the Home

BOSTON, Dec. 10, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Wayfair.com the largest online retailer of home goods and furnishings, announced today that it has secured $36.3 million in new equity financing to fuel the growth of Joss & Main (jossandmain.com), the company's private sale site for the home. Joss & Main has acquired nearly three million members and is operating at a $100 million annual revenue run-rate to become the fastest growing flash sale site for home goods and furnishings. Investors include Battery Ventures, Great Hill Partners, HarbourVest Partners and Spark Capital.

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"Joss & Main has gained tremendous traction over a very short period of time through its unique approach to curated e-commerce," said Niraj Shah, CEO and co-founder of Wayfair.com. "The site hit its highest sales day on Cyber Monday by a factor of over 50 percent and sales are up 10- fold since last year. It's clear that shoppers love the Joss & Main experience and with the help of our investors we expect to grow membership and sales at an even greater pace."

A division of Wayfair.com, Joss & Main is a membership-based website that offers inspirational decor at attainable prices via daily events, spotlight collections highlighting design trends and styles, and curated collections in collaboration with celebrities and notable influencers within the design community. Members of the private sales site can explore curated collections of furniture, housewares, decor and accents through limited-time sales.

"Our aim is to evoke a lifestyle magazine and encourage the delight of daily window shopping as well as the ease and temptation to buy every item from every story – if you act quickly enough," noted John Mulliken, co-founder and General Manager of Joss & Main. "This recipe is resonating very strongly with our members as evidenced by the pace at which new members are signing up every day. Because we're part of Wayfair.com we have capabilities and flexibility with our offering and supply chain that other stand-alone flash sites cannot offer and that, in turn, makes our customer experience even more compelling."

Joss & Main released a mobile app earlier this year which has helped drive steady sales growth with the percentage of revenue from mobile up 50 percent this holiday season. 

"Mobile shopping represents more than one third of sales every weekend, and reached nearly 40 percent on Cyber Monday. Mobile is growing four to five times as fast as the rest of our business, which is fast-growing itself," added Mulliken. "The combination of inspirational content, compelling pricing, and a simple experience to quickly shop our events from anywhere is driving a big portion of our success – and our mobile app members are 40 percent more engaged than our other members."

"We are impressed by the traction that Joss & Main has secured over the past year in a category that is poised for tremendous growth," said Michael Kumin, Managing Partner at Great Hill Partners. "The company has built a successful model and has demonstrated the ability to consistently innovate in a very traditional industry. The mobile growth alone speaks volumes about Joss & Main's ability to connect with shoppers."

While the home furnishings industry is valued at over $160 billion in the U.S. alone, only a small percentage of that market is online. Traditional barriers to online shopping for home furnishings are crumbling as new generations of shoppers who have grown up with the internet are beginning to furnish their homes. Additionally, shoppers across all generations have built up a comfort level over time with online purchases of smaller items such as books and shoes making the move to furniture and decor a more comfortable transition.

"Niraj and his team have done an amazing job over the years we've known them, and their move into flash sales is no exception," noted Neeraj Agrawal, General Partner at Battery Ventures.  "The online home furnishing market has experienced double digit growth over the last year, and we believe Joss & Main is poised to lead the flash sales portion.  It's a mega industry that's just beginning to hit its stride online, and the team has the right DNA to capture the opportunity."

About Joss & Main

Joss & Main (www.jossandmain.com) offers limited-time sales on the world's best brands for your home and life including furniture, housewares, decor accents, lifestyle accessories, giftables and more at prices up to 70% off retail. Free to join, the website offers inspirational decor at attainable prices via daily events, design trend reports, and Curator's Collections, collaborating with celebrities and notable influencers within the design community.  Joss & Main has introduced collections recently with Zoe Saldana, Courteney Cox, Orlando Bloom, and Bridget Moynahan among other celebrities, chefs, as well as exclusive products designed by many of these curators. Joss & Main is the fastest growing private sales site for the home and is backed by home e-retailer giant, Wayfair.com.

About Wayfair.com

Wayfair.com offers a zillion things home – the largest online catalog of furniture, lighting, cookware and more. With this massive selection of more than five million products, chances are good people can find just the right items for their homes. Other sites under the Wayfair.com umbrella include AllModern.com and JossAndMain.com.

Headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, Wayfair.com employs more than 1000 people and was recently named the 28^th most valuable private digital company in the world by Business Insider. Wayfair.com operates distribution and operations centers in Ogden, Utah and Hebron, Kentucky, and international offices in Galway, Ireland, London, Berlin and Sydney. For more information, please visit www.wayfair.com, or follow us at www.facebook.com/wayfair or at www.twitter.com/wayfair or check out our blog My Way Home at www.wayfair.com/blog.

SOURCE Wayfair.com