Real estate venture firm Fifth Wall Ventures has closed on a $100 million funding vehicle designed to help pure play e-Commerce retailers break into brick-and-mortar. Some of the money was raised from real estate investors including Macerich Co. and Arcadia Realty Trust, which will potentially become landlords for the fund’s recipients.
Fifth Wall’s goal is to ease the transition between e-Commerce and physical stores by helping digitally native retailers find viable locations for their first shops. This process also helps provide Fifth Wall’s backers with highly visible retailers as tenants: the firm has helped UNTUCKit find 10 of its U.S. locations at Macerich properties, and Taft Clothing opened its first store in an Arcadia-owned building last year.
“New e-commerce brands know the importance of being wherever their customers want them to be at all times – they simply cannot reach their full potential if they remain solely online,” said Kevin Campos, Partner, Fifth Wall in a statement. “However, digitally native brands often aren’t familiar with the challenges of retail real estate expansion and we’ve observed that many traditional VCs lack the experience to be able to meaningfully engage on issues like site selection, store design, merchandising, and staffing. Fifth Wall aims to support brands on these very issues.”
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