Daily deals are supposed to be dying, at least as far as watchers of Groupon and Living Social are concerned. But Zulily, a deals site for moms, babies and kids, hasn’t seemed to notice. And nor has Andreessen Horowitz, which is investing $ 85 million in Zulily’s Series D round of dunding.
Zulily said it now has 10 million members who come every day to check out more than 35 sales events. Sales are announced each morning in an email and last around 72 hours. The company also just launched an iPad app, which is important because Zulily now gets 30 percent of its sales on mobile devices.
But aren’t daily deals doomed? Well, not if you believe Andreessen Horowitz partner Jeff Jordan, who said Zulily is positioned for even more growth ahead as a leader in “ecommerce 2.0.” He wrote in a blog post that the company plays in big markets and is very efficient but doesn’t go head-to-head with Amazon. Instead, it works with designers who don’t have national distribution and creates a long-tail catalog of products similar to Fab.
Zulily isn’t a traditional daily deal site, it’s more of a mix with a flash sales site like Gilt. And it doesn’t seem to be slowing down. The company previously raised $ 53.6 million including $ 43 million last year at a reported $ 700 million valuation. Earlier on Thursday, Fortune reported that Zulily was now valued at $ 1 billion though that was based on a report that the company was raising $ 100 million.
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