Dollar Shave Club bought by Unilever

Dubin, the company’s thirtysomething C.E.O., will remain in his role as part of the deal, and will continue to run Dollar Shave Club independently. In the words of one executive of a major CPG company, , the big traditional players are “kind of f***ed”.

In March 2012, Michael Dubin became an accidental YouTube sensation when a video he made to promote his start-up, Dollar Shave Club, went viral.

In 2015, DSC had turnover of US$152 million (EUR 152 million) and, according to Unilever, is on track to exceed US$200 million in turnover in 2016.

P&G fought back with its own Gillette Shave Club, which it unveiled in 2014, but has failed to stem a lengthy market-share decline that accelerated when Dollar Shave Club and other online razor services like Harry’s Inc. came on the scene.

Dollar Shave Club is a men’s grooming brand dedicated to helping men live smarter, more successful lives through high-quality personal care products, content and technology. “Well, for a dollar a month we send high quality razors right to your door”.

Neither Dollar Shave Club nor Unilever disclosed terms of the deal.

The surprise move by Unilever, which makes Axe body spray and Dove soap, shows how e-commerce is disrupting the market for consumer packaged goods.

Dollar Shave Club’s acquisition “seems to fit into Unilever’s strategy to move into personal healthcare products”, Joost van Beek, an analyst at Amsterdam-based Theodoor Gilissen private bank told AFP. Representatives for Dollar Shave Club could not be reached outside California office hours.

Calling Dollar Shave Club “innovative” and “disruptive”, Unilever North America’s President Kees Kruythoff acknowledged that Dollar Shave Club’s primary appeal is its “incredibly deep connections to its diverse and highly engaged consumers”. “It just felt right to me and I really trust the people I met at the Unilever“. Whether or not we see a new, and possibly more mature, Dollar Shave Club, going forward, remains to be seen. The startup previously raised some $160 million in venture capital funding for a valuation of $600 million, and will use the money brought in from the acquisition to expand to new territories.

The lawsuit apparently didn’t scare off Unilever, either.