Startups

RevZilla and Cycle Gear just announced a confusing partnership

No acquisition, as was previously rumored, but we'll have more details soon.

RevZilla's marketing strategy includes a popular YouTube video series, in which cofounder Anthony Bucci often appears. (Screenshot via YouTube)

Reuters reported last week that Navy Yard ecommerce company RevZilla was going to be acquired by California-based Cycle Gear for as much as $500 million.
So much for that anonymous source.
RevZilla announced this afternoon the creation of “a newly formed holding company with investments in both RevZilla and Cycle Gear, Inc., two of the nation’s leading retailers of apparel, accessories and parts for motorcycle enthusiasts.”
(For what it’s worth, we speculated that a Cycle Gear acquisition of RevZilla would be a big deal. So much for us.)
RevZilla and Cycle Gear will continue to operate independently. No financial terms of the deal were disclosed. According to a RevZilla blog post about the partnership, money seems to have changed hands:

Today, the larger and more exciting opportunity is to think about how RevZilla can leverage new capital to scale more quickly and entertain new opportunities like our own retail destination stores or international expansion.

We’ll be interviewing RevZilla cofounder Anthony Bucci this evening for more information.
Until then, the good stuff is in this very on-brand FAQ page:

Did Cycle Gear acquire RevZilla?
No. The RevZilla founders and J.W. Childs formed a new, yet-to-be-named holding company to collectively own both businesses as sister companies, operating separately.
Then why does every news article state that Cycle Gear acquired RevZilla?
All of this started because of one brief Reuters article that was based upon incorrect information. The story then snowballed through the media as other outlets cited the Reuters story, repeating and enlarging on the errors.

So, 500 million dollar checks for errybody? Really?
We want whatever the media was smoking when they reported that… and a set of gold fronts.

Daps to whoever wrote this.

Update: This piece has answers. (2/11/16, 2:24 p.m.)
Companies: RevZilla
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