Jet.com Snags A Fresh $350M, Anticipates $150M More

Jet.com, an e-commerce company with its sights on Amazon, has raised a fresh $350 million, and according to a report on Re/code has “verbal agreements” for another $150 million.

TechCrunch confirmed the details of the story with the firm.

Jet has managed several feats in its short life, including generating a tectonic quantity of buzz by raising capital aggressively before its launch. Following a very public debut, Jet screamed to what was described as the fourth largest online marketplace.

However, despite its initial momentum, Jet has attracted a gaggle of critics and has made changes to its business model that have confused some watchers of the company. The company’s sharp arc has led some TechCrunch headlines into slightly surreal territory. For example, when Jet dropped its yearly membership fee, this publication reported that “Jet, Now Raising, Ditches Its Membership Fees But Says Profitability Still On Track For 2020.”

That capital, it seems, has come to roost. You can vet for yourself how strong a signal it is that Jet’s next tranche of cash is verbal and not actual.

According to a release provided by the company, Jet saw gross merchandise volume of $33.2 million in October, a figure that the company claims is up 65 percent from its September pace.

To place the company’s new $350 million into context, it locked in $140 million this February. At the time, the company was said to be valued at $600 million. According to the company’s, the firm was valued at $1 billion before the capital infusion, the implication being that Jet is now worth $1.35 billion to its investors.

In today’s Re/code story, there is an interesting quote from Jet CEO Marc Lore worth sharing here:

“It was definitely a challenging financing environment, no question about that,” CEO Marc Lore said in an interview. “And the fact we were able to get as much demand as we did at the valuation we had is just a testament to our performance to date and the size of the overall opportunity and the team we assembled.”

That is a more candid answer than we are usually treated to by executives. At the same time, if Jet had instead attempted bluster and obfuscation, I suspect it would have ended up worse.

Jet is a company that has come under regular fire from the cynical set. Taking on Amazon is no small task. And it is harder when you are the upstart with less capital. Still, investors are making a bet that there is at least enough room in the market for more than one winning player.

Jet has its money. Now it’s time to put more points on the board.