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Movado Completes Acquisition of Millennial-Focused Brand
The company paid $100 million+ for MVMT Watches, a company started in 2013 by two 20-something college dropouts.
Two watches by MVMT, the brand just acquired by Movado Group for $100 million up front. On right is the women’s 38 mm Boulevard Santa Monica watch ($115 retail) and on the left is the men’s 42 mm Voyager Slate Black Rose ($150); both watches are quartz. (Photo credit: @laya.gerlock)
Paramus, N.J.—Movado Group now owns MVMT Watches Inc., the millennial-focused watch and accessory brand started by a pair of 20-something college dropouts.
Movado paid $100 million ($85 million net of tax benefits) upfront for Los Angeles-based MVMT and could pay as much as $100 million more depending on how MVMT performs financially under Movado ownership.
Southern California natives Jacob Kassan and Kramer LaPlante—who are now both in their mid-20s—started MVMT in 2013 after deciding they were going to quit school to launch their own business.
Their seed money was $300,000, raised through a pair of crowdfunding campaigns on Indiegogo.
The business was built primarily online and started out with just watches before adding sunglasses and other accessories last year.
Today, MVMT-brand products are sold in Nordstrom and Bloomingdales as well as on MVMTWatches.com, and the company’s sales totaled about $71 million last year, according to Movado.
Buying MVMT allows Movado to add a growing, successful millennial-focused brand with a strong digital presence to its stable. For MVMT, the acquisition allows it to tap into Movado’s global infrastructure and distribution network to expand into untapped categories, channels and geographies.
Movado announced its planned acquisition of MVMT in August.
It is the second brand targeting younger consumers snapped up by the Paramus, New Jersey-based watch design, sourcing and distribution company. Movado bought U.K. company Olivia Burton in 2017.
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