Digital Commerce Startup Kite Closes on $200M from Blackstone, Juxtapose

Kite, a New York-based digital commerce startup specializing in scaling high-potential brands, has closed on $200 million in equity from funds managed by Blackstone and founding partner Juxtapose.

Kite was founded by Rob Solomon several years after stepping down as chairman and CEO of GoFundMe, along with investment firms Juxtapose and Blackstone in 2022.

The company’s strategy is to acquire companies, then help brand founders with capital and operations to accelerate their business from e-commerce to social, retail and beyond.

Part of that vision includes building a tech stack that leans on artificial intelligence and API to provide better manufacturing, supply chain, design and customer acquisition capabilities.

“Today, entrepreneurial brands aren’t set up to thrive because commerce infrastructures are siloed, fragmented, and inefficient,” said Solomon. “Creating extreme efficiencies across a product’s commerce journey is the path to unlocking its greatest potential.”

Solomon is already building out Kite’s team, including a GoFundMe colleague, Ujjwal Singh, who is chief product and technology officer; Nastasha Tan, chief design officer, who was previously with Ideo and Uber; and supply chain and operations expert John Kufner as chief operations officer.

Mark Mitchke, President and CEO of Delta Dental and former VP and GM of Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA), has joined Kite’s Board of Directors.

Prior to GoFundMe, Solomon was president and COO of Groupon and ran the commerce business unit at Yahoo.