Karmaloop acquired on Tuesday content publisher Soletron to make the Back Bay streetwear retailer’s e-commerce site a destination for blog posts and videos relevant to their consumers, according to Internet Retailer.
Soletron seems to align well with Karmaloop’s brand – edgy yet hip, with a heavy dose of attitude. The platform creates content on topics like music, fashion, technology and sports, targeting men aged 18 to 35. Interestingly, the startup launched in 2011 as an e-commerce market for urban apparel; in other words, Soletron started out as a Karmaloop competitor. In 2012, however, it switched gears to focus on generating content.
This isn’t the first time that Karmaloop has made plans to boost its content creation. In early 2012, the company’s CEO Greg Selkoe told the Boston Business Journal that Karmaloop has invested $7 million into creating a TV channel dedicated to the brand, which would act as an extension of the company’s video site Karmalooptv.com. When Comcast couldn’t give an exact date for the channel’s debut, Karmaloop pulled the plug.
“We thought it was going to be launched at the end of 2012, but Comcast told us it was going to be more like mid-2013, but they couldn’t give the exact date,” Selkoe told the Boston Business Journal at the time.
The acquisition hints at a fresh strategy of attracting, and appealing to, Karmaloop consumers, the majority of which are, like Soletron’s target audience, under 35. The company is, as of February, still in the process of raising $30 million in funding to fuel an international expansion.
