A dual-headquartered tech startup known for helping brands optimize their sales on Amazon is celebrating a significant growth milestone this week as it enters its 11th year in business.
Amify, which is co-headquartered in Cincinnati and Arlington, Va., has reached an annual run rate of $100 million in gross merchandise value, or GMV, for its customers in terms of goods sold, officials said in a Thursday release. That represents a 600% increase in GMV under management over the past year from both new and existing clients and establishes the company as the largest service provider focused on third-party sellers.
Ethan McAfee, founder and CEO of Amify, told me the company has been working toward the metric for some time. Amify bills itself as an "Amazon-as-a-service" provider and helps brands market themselves and their products with advertising and content. It also manages Amazon storefronts, oversees inventory and demand planning, as well as customer service and returns.
“When I started the company 10 years ago, no way in a million years did I think we were going to sell $100 million worth of product in a year on the Amazon platform. It’s a sign that we’ve achieved relevance and that we’re helping our brand partners be successful.”
Given current projections, Amify expects to achieve a GMV run rate of $200 million by the end of 2021. This number represents only sales for which Amify is directly responsible.
It was a hot 2020 for e-commerce sales – the e-commerce market grew from 16% to a high of more than 25% of overall retail sales over the past year, per marketing researcher eMarketer – but Amify clients saw 150% average growth on Amazon, the company said.
McAfee said Amify was able to help its existing brands grow, but it also signed new brands last year as Covid-related shutdowns decimated brick-and-mortar sales.
“Not only did e-commerce grow, but we dramatically grew much much, much faster than the overall e-commerce market,” McAfee said. “That’s a combination of taking brands and growing them, but also signing up a whole bunch of new brands looking for long-term solutions and realizing that Amazon can be a huge part of their business."
Amify’s brand partners include Procter & Gamble and Energizer, as well as local companies Under the Weather, a Linwood-based portable pods business; Robert Rothschild Farms, a maker of small batch sauce; and Doscher’s Candy Co.
Amify, which counts local seed-fund CincyTech as one of its investors, opened its second HQ in East Walnut Hills in 2019 largely to access the city’s concentration of branding talent and to be close to Amazon’s upcoming $1.5 billion air cargo hub at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport. The company also maintains a warehouse in Hebron.
Overall, Amify employs 70, including 40 in the Cincinnati metro area. The company expects to grow to 100-plus total employees by the end of the year.
"It’s been an interesting two years,” McAfee said. “We entered the Cincinnati market and hired a lot of people there, and Covid hit. A lot of people are buying more products on Amazon, and we feel thankful to be at the right place at the right time.”
