“Fashiontech Audaces buys Sizebay, leader in virtual fitting rooms”
Original headline: “Fashiontech Audaces compra Sizebay, líder em provador virtual”
The piece that the rest of the coverage followed. Audaces, the Santa Catarina fashiontech, acquires Sizebay; the price stays undisclosed and Sizebay keeps operating independently. The outlet places the deal inside a plan its chairman describes as up to R$ 1 billion of international growth, acquisitions included, by 2030.
What the piece carries
It is the record of the acquisition in the business press that covers deals for a living, which is why it is the one kept here and the outlets that reproduced it are not. Bylined Maria Luíza Filgueiras, it reads the deal as two multinationals out of the same state combining: Audaces, which sells technology for the fashion production process, operates in 42 countries out of Florianópolis and Rovereto in Italy, and counts 20,000 corporate clients; Sizebay, which leads virtual fitting rooms in retail and operates in 58 countries. The price stays undisclosed.
The strategy the outlet places it inside belongs to the buyer. Audaces puts up to R$1 billion behind international growth including acquisitions by 2030, which the piece works out as an average of R$200 million a year, and its chairman and co-founder Claudio Grando describes the company as moving towards an ecosystem of integrated technology for the clothing world. Grando's case for fit is a market fact rather than a slogan: he tells the outlet that about 70% of Brazil's clothing manufacturers use Audaces software, and that of the fifteen largest online retailers, ten run a Sizebay solution.
The number that says most about the decade before it is the traffic. Across just over a thousand retail clients, the piece reports 360 million try-ons a month in its fitting rooms, and says plainly what that is for: fewer exchanges, and a smaller reverse logistics bill.
Then it reports why the founders sold, which acquisition coverage usually skips. Marcelo Bastos tells the outlet that innovation requires occupying territory as fast as possible and their reach had become limited by their own size. Earlier conversations with European, American and Israeli suitors had gone nowhere for a reason he names:
None of them offered an option of continuity in Brazil. It was a good exit for the partners and a terrible one for the people who have been with us since the beginning, the internal talent that gave the company its push.
Audaces took control of the share capital; Bastos and Araujo stayed running Sizebay as an independent unit. The piece names Janderson Araujo as the person Bastos brought in when the company started, and dates the idea to 2014 with the operation beginning in 2016. Other pieces in this record date the same beginning differently, so no single founding year is stated as fact here.
“Sizebay is acquired by Audaces as part of global expansion strategy”
The primary source for the acquisition: the Italian-Brazilian fashiontech Audaces acquires Sizebay. Combined, the companies report more than 400 employees across six units in Europe and the Americas, serving customers in over 100 countries. Sizebay keeps independent operations under its co-founders.
“The virtual fitting room created by a Brazilian startup is a leader in global e-commerce”
A profile of Sizebay's rise from a Joinville design agency in 2014 to global leadership in virtual fitting room technology. The story is told through Janderson's founder path.
“Sizebay participates in the 2022 edition of the E-Commerce Brasil Forum”
The main Brazilian e-commerce channel announces Sizebay among the players of the 2022 Forum. The event is the sector’s key gathering in Brazil and Latin America.
