Data sourced from Dakota Marketplace, the global LP and GP intelligence platform trusted by thousands of investment professionals. Learn More | Book a Demo
Dakota Marketplace recorded 2,085 disclosed consumer transactions worth $250 billion in the twelve months ending May 2026. Ten late-stage rounds from that set ran between $165 million and $650 million, and several of them are bets on one shift: how consumers find brands.
ChatGPT now has 800 to 900 million weekly active users, and 32% of consumers globally use social commerce for product research, up from 27% in 2023. Brands built on search ads and shelf placement are being repriced around those channels.
Below are ten of the largest late-stage consumer rounds in the Dakota Marketplace data, ranked by round size, with the lead investors and what each deal signals for fund managers raising capital into consumer.
The 10 Rounds at a Glance
| |
Company
|
Round
|
Lead
|
Closed
|
|
1
|
Slate Auto
|
$650m Series C
|
TWG Global
|
Apr 2026
|
|
2
|
Quince
|
$500m Series E
|
ICONIQ
|
Mar 2026
|
|
3
|
Zepto
|
$450m pre-IPO round
|
CalPERS
|
Oct 2025
|
|
4
|
Gopuff
|
$250m
|
Eldridge Industries, Valor Equity Partners
|
Nov 2025
|
|
5
|
Pickleball, Inc.
|
$225m minority growth
|
Apollo Global Management
|
May 2026
|
|
6
|
Skims
|
$225m
|
Goldman Sachs Alternatives
|
Nov 2025
|
|
7
|
Whatnot
|
$225m Series F
|
DST Global, CapitalG
|
Oct 2025
|
|
8
|
Beast Industries (MrBeast)
|
$200m minority equity
|
Bitmine Immersion Technologies
|
Jan 2026
|
|
9
|
Nothing
|
$200m Series C
|
Tiger Global Management
|
Sep 2025
|
|
10
|
Sunday Inc
|
$165m Series B
|
Coatue Management
|
Mar 2026
|
Sources: Dakota Marketplace, Global Consumer Deal Trends 2026 (May 2026); company and wire announcements cited in each profile. Rounds at the same size are ordered by closing date, latest first.
1. Slate Auto
$650m Series C | Detroit | Apr 2026
Slate Auto's $650m Series C, led by TWG Global in April 2026, is the largest round in this ranking. It is also the highest multiple of stage median among the venture and growth rounds Dakota screened, at 15.5x the $42m median Series C. TWG came back eleven months after co-leading the $700m Series B with Bezos Expeditions, which brings Slate's disclosed funding to $1.35bn.
Lead: TWG Global.
Discovery Angle: Slate is the outlier on this list. Its case rests on affordability, not discovery, and Dakota files it under the income-split trend: Goldman Sachs cut its 2026 US disposable cash flow growth forecast from 5.1% to 3.7%, with the bottom income quintile growing under 1%.
What It Signals: Dakota records four family office transactions in affordable EV and mobility, with $1.35bn in disclosed commitments. For a manager raising a follow-on round, the existing lead is the first call: TWG wrote the Series C within a year of the Series B.
2. Quince
$500m Series E | San Francisco | Mar 2026
Quince closed a $500m Series E in March 2026 at a $10.1bn post-money valuation, according to Reuters (March 11, 2026). The company sells apparel, jewelry and home goods made directly with manufacturers, and its revenue passed $1bn in 2025. Baillie Gifford, DST Global and Wellington Management were among the participants.
Lead: ICONIQ.
Discovery Angle: Quince says it uses AI to forecast demand and produces in smaller batches to limit excess inventory (Reuters, March 11, 2026). Its chief commercial officer says customers increasingly come to Quince first when they are looking for something (FashionUnited, March 12, 2026). That makes it the clearest destination-brand bet in this set.
What It Signals: Growth equity is paying for brands that shoppers search for by name. Dakota's late-stage DTC category, at roughly 40 deals, shows the same pattern from the demand side: social commerce and AI assistants are repricing how products get found.
3. Zepto
$450m pre-IPO round | Mumbai | Oct 2025
Zepto, the Indian quick commerce company, raised about $450m in October 2025 at a $7bn valuation, led by the California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS), according to Inc42 (October 2025). The round mixed primary and secondary capital, with primary making up most of it. It is the only round in this ranking led by a public pension plan.
Lead: CalPERS.
Discovery Angle: Zepto's advertising business reached a $200m annual run rate, up fivefold from $40m a year earlier, as reported by Outlook Business. In quick commerce, placement inside the app is the discovery channel, and brands pay for it.
What It Signals: Dakota counts 274 disclosed consumer transactions in India worth $4.2bn, and names Zepto in the pre-IPO pipeline of queued public exits. An allocator leading the round also shows the capital side of the market writing direct consumer checks.
4. Gopuff
$250m | Philadelphia | Nov 2025
Gopuff announced a $250m round on November 13, 2025, led by Eldridge Industries and Valor Equity Partners (Business Wire, November 13, 2025). Baillie Gifford, Robinhood, Equalis Capital and the co-founders also took part. The company said the capital will go to AI, consumer experience and infrastructure.
Lead: Eldridge Industries and Valor Equity Partners.
Discovery Angle: Gopuff's discovery story is availability, not search: the product that is in stock and arrives in minutes wins the order. The AI spending it announced is aimed at the consumer experience layer of that model.
What It Signals: Dakota groups Eldridge with the North American and European family offices that concentrate dollars in one or two high-conviction theses, here late-stage commerce. Gopuff's $250m is the larger of the two late-stage commerce transactions in Dakota's family office data, alongside a $58m seed round for ZyG from Access Industries.
5. Pickleball, Inc.
$225m minority growth | United States | May 2026
Apollo Global Management led a $225m minority growth investment in Pickleball, Inc. in May 2026. Dakota positions the round at Series C equivalent against a $42m median, a 5.4x multiple. It was one of Apollo's four consumer checks in the trailing year, and Apollo led all four.
Lead: Apollo Global Management.
Discovery Angle: Pickleball, Inc. is not a direct-to-consumer brand, and it is the loosest fit on this list. It earns its place as the largest sports IP growth round in this ranking and as a bet on solo and racket-sport demand: US consumers report about three more hours of free time a week than in 2019, with close to 90% spent on solo activity (McKinsey, June 2025).
What It Signals: Dakota expects sports IP exits to move from minority growth deals to platform trades, with BOLT Ventures running a multi-discipline roll-up. Family offices are already concentrating here: Dakota records seven family office sports IP transactions.
Dakota Marketplace tracks late-stage consumer rounds by deal type, sector, geography and lead investor. Book a demo to see who is writing the checks.
6. Skims
$225m | Los Angeles | Nov 2025
Skims closed a $225m raise at a $5bn valuation on November 12, 2025, led by Goldman Sachs Alternatives with participation from affiliated funds of BDT & MSD Partners (Goldman Sachs Alternatives, November 12, 2025). The shapewear and apparel brand was founded in 2019 by Kim Kardashian and Jens Grede, and it plans to use the proceeds for product innovation and new categories (Retail Insight Network, November 14, 2025).
Lead: Goldman Sachs Alternatives, with BDT & MSD Partners.
Discovery Angle: Skims sits in Dakota's celebrity-led cohort: seven brands that each cleared $63m with named institutional buyers in the trailing year. A founder with a built-in audience is its own discovery channel, which is why Dakota tracks the cohort as a category with reference multiples and a queued pipeline.
What It Signals: The announcement quotes Goldman Sachs Alternatives' global head of hybrid capital, which points to a hybrid-capital check rather than a classic venture lead. Dakota's family office data also shows BDT & MSD concentrating in celebrity-led brands.
7. Whatnot
$225m Series F | Oct 2025
Whatnot raised a $225m Series F in October 2025 at an $11.5bn valuation, co-led by DST Global and CapitalG, with Sequoia Capital and Alkeon Capital joining as new investors (Crunchbase News, October 2025). The valuation more than doubled from the nearly $5bn set by its $265m Series E in January 2025.
Lead: DST Global and CapitalG.
Discovery Angle: Whatnot is the social commerce thesis in its plainest form: buyers find products inside live video streams run by sellers. The company reported customer retention above 80% month over month (Cllct, October 2025).
What It Signals: The round included a tender offer of up to $126m for select current investors (Crunchbase News, October 2025). A late-stage raise can therefore price liquidity for early holders alongside the new primary capital.
8. Beast Industries (MrBeast)
$200m minority equity | Jan 2026
Beast Industries, the holding company behind MrBeast and the Feastables snack brand, agreed a $200m equity investment from Bitmine Immersion Technologies on January 15, 2026, according to Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, which advised Beast Industries. Bitmine is an Ethereum treasury company. Dakota records the deal as a minority round.
Lead: Bitmine Immersion Technologies.
Discovery Angle: Distribution here is the creator's audience: MrBeast's YouTube channels have more than 450 million subscribers (Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, January 2026). Dakota lists creator media among the celebrity-led categories that did not exist as institutional deal flow five years ago.
What It Signals: This is the only round in the ranking funded by a crypto treasury company rather than a fund manager, so non-traditional capital is competing for creator-led brands. Dakota names BERO (Tom Holland) and Unión Deportiva Almería (Cristiano Ronaldo) as recent celebrity-led rounds with undisclosed values.
9. Nothing
$200m Series C | London | Sep 2025
Nothing, the London consumer-electronics company, raised a $200m Series C in September 2025, led by Tiger Global Management with GV, Highland Europe and Qualcomm Ventures participating. The round is 4.76x the $42m median Series C in Dakota's dataset.
Lead: Tiger Global Management.
Discovery Angle: Dakota places Nothing in its AI-driven discovery cohort as a UK challenger to Apple, and ties the repricing of the late-stage DTC market to the shift in how products are found.
What It Signals: Tiger Global wrote six consumer checks in the trailing year and led two of them. A US generalist leading a European hardware brand fits the pattern Dakota flags for Series B and beyond, where generalists write the largest checks.
10. Sunday Inc
$165m Series B | San Jose | Mar 2026
Coatue Management led a $165m Series B in Sunday Inc in March 2026, with Bain Capital Ventures, Tiger Global, Benchmark and Conviction Partners participating. The round is 8.25x the $20m median Series B, the second-highest multiple in Dakota's breakout list after Slate Auto.
Lead: Coatue Management.
Discovery Angle: Sunday sits in premium pet, which Dakota counts at about 25 deals in the trailing year and describes as an extension of the better-for-you wellness framework into pet diet and care. Its link to AI-era discovery is indirect: this is a category-growth bet, not a distribution bet.
What It Signals: Coatue wrote five consumer checks in the trailing year and is one of six generalists Dakota names as leading the largest checks at Series B and beyond, alongside Tiger, Insight, Apollo, Bessemer and Lightspeed.
What the Ten Rounds Tell Fund Managers
None of the ten rounds was led by a dedicated consumer specialist, so a consumer raise in this range competes for generalist and non-traditional capital. Four patterns sit under the list.
-
Generalists lead the largest checks. TWG, ICONIQ, Apollo, DST, CapitalG, Tiger and Coatue are all multi-sector firms. Dakota's data shows the same split by stage: pure-play specialists such as CAVU anchor Seed breakouts, while generalists lead at Series B and beyond.
-
Allocators and family offices write direct checks. CalPERS led Zepto and Eldridge led Gopuff. Dakota counts about 28 family office consumer transactions with more than $2bn in disclosed commitments.
-
Discovery is a pricing input. Quince, Whatnot, Gopuff, Zepto and Nothing all depend on how shoppers find them: destination search, live video, in-app placement or AI-driven discovery. Dakota describes the late-stage DTC market as repricing around that shift.
-
Stage medians flag the breakouts. Slate Auto, Sunday Inc, Pickleball, Inc. and Nothing cleared 4.76x to 15.5x their stage medians. Dakota does not score Series D and later rounds against medians, so Quince and Whatnot sit outside that test.
Dakota Marketplace
Dakota Marketplace tracks every consumer transaction in detail, including deal type, target, buyers, sellers, sector, industry, geography and announced date.
Our Marketplace lets you filter by:
- Deal type, from venture and growth rounds to minority investments
- Sector and industry, including consumer and late-stage DTC
- Geography, from North America and Europe to India
- Buyers and sellers, so you can see who led each round
See which investors are leading consumer rounds before you build your target list.
Book a demo to see consumer deal coverage!
