The Man Who Knows Amazon's Brutal Tactics Better Than Anyone Just Sealed $80 Million In Funding For His New Company
This funding, from Western Technology Investments and Silicon Valley Bank, comes shortly after Jet raised $55 million in July from NEA, Accel Partners, Bain Capital, and MentorTech Ventures.
Although details about what Jet will sell or do are still hazy, Lore promises that it will be a "new kind of e-commerce experience, uniquely grounded in transparency and customer empowerment."
Re/Code's Jason Del Rey has heard from sources that Jet will dynamically price products based on how close they are to the buyer, which would let it undercut prices on other sites, like Amazon.
The back-story between Amazon and Lore is quite interesting:
In 2010, Amazon bought Quidsi - the e-commerce company responsible for Diapers.com, Soap.com, Wag.com, and other sites - for $540 million.
Quidsi's founders, Marc Lore and Vinit Bharara, made a killing, but the sale wasn't entirely sweet.
Before the acquisition, Amazon had more-or-less declared a pricing war against Diapers.com. Amazon started offering deep, deep discounts on diapers, trying to undercut the smaller company. This was not the first time that Amazon was willing to lose money temporarily to stave off a competitor. Not long after Amazon started its aggressive price chopping, Quidsi sold.
Lore and Bharara stayed at Quidsi for four years on contract after Amazon bought it, but they both left July 2013.
Now, Lore has assembled a team of more than 30 employees (including many former Quidsi people) to launch Jet. Bharara will reportedly not be involved.
The site - which now has $80 million in funding - won't launch until later this year, partially because of a non-compete clause from Amazon that hasn't run out yet, Fortune sources report. Since Lore has already been up-close-and-personal with Amazon's most brutal competitive tactics and strategies, he's better prepared than anyone to take it on.
Here's Lore's full post:
Disclosure: Jeff Bezos is an investor in Business Insider through his personal investment company Bezos Expeditions.