Ice.com receives $47 million funding (2)
Mashable reports that Montreal-based online jewelry retailer ice.com got $47 million from New York VC Polaris Venture Partners.
Mashable also reports that they raked in $83.4 millions in sales in 2007, from organic growth, and plan to get more market shares. The author, Kristen Cole, sees ice.com investing in new advertising and marketing strategies like Facebook’s beacon, which is a bit over the top for me (since when did Facebook become the solution for any problem for any web-based startup?)
In related notes, Ice.com started in 1999, with the goal of offering more affordable diamonds and jewelry via the web. Prior to the bubble, they received “lots” of money, and then quickly grew the business; but ultimately sizing down ice.com and getting it back to Montréal after the bubble. Today’s news seems to me that history repeats again. 47$ million is a lot of money, and much more than you ultimately need to grow a web-based business. Unless they plan to buy their own diamond mine supplies…
from Austin Hill
There’s a good article here about how their took funding from idealab and then bought it back: http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/oct2002/tc2002101_8420.htm
Techcrunch just covered this story also http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/01/03/deals-sugarcrm-gets-145-million-icecom-gets-47-million/
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