Bergio International, which sells branded designer jewelry direct to consumer, has acquired the jewelry e-tail site Aphrodite’s from its prior owner and founder, Digital Age Business.
The $5 million transaction was conducted in stock and cash. Bergio International is a public company, traded over the counter on the Pink Sheets.
Aphrodite’s, based out of Miami, has already generated revenues in excess of $31 million in three and a half years in operation, including $10 million in sales in 2020 alone. Its office will remain in Miami.
Under the new arrangement, Aphrodite’s will sell affordably priced silver product exclusively produced by Bergio under the Aphrodite’s brand name.
Aphrodite’s “has done incredible business, but it had reached a plateau,” says Berge Abajian, CEO of Fairfield, N.J.–based Bergio International. “The jewelry industry is a different animal. [Aphrodite’s] wanted to go public, and we were already public. So we came together. For me to develop what I bought would take 10 years.”
The new plan calls for Aphrodite’s to be “the affordably priced division of Bergio,” says Abajian.
However, he also hopes to use his new team’s tech know-how to set up a direct-to-consumer Bergio site that will sell Bergio-branded diamond jewelry.
“We want to phase out the wholesale end,” he says. “Being public helped me a lot, as now we can compete against the big guys. None of the other big sites, like Blue Nile and James Allen, are vertical, but we are. That will make our prices a lot more competitive with better margins.”
Jonathan Folz, CEO and founder of Digital Age Business, said in a statement that Aphrodite’s has “grown incredibly fast without a single outside equity investor, and I believe it is time for us now to get to the next level. We most definitely cannot do this alone.… I am seeing incredible synergies between the two companies.”
(Photo courtesy of Bergio International)
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