Online Retailer GovX Raises $11.5M to Expand Member-Only Services

San Diego-based GovX, an e-commerce retailer that operates like an online military base exchange for qualified U.S. Armed Forces, law enforcement, and public safety personnel, said it has raised $11.5 million from investors to expand its exclusive array of discounted products and services.

Two existing shareholders, Alestra Ltd. and Arbor Group, led the round, which was joined by principals from Star Avenue Capital, Seth Hamot, chairman of SPY Optic and a principal at Roark, Rearden & Hamot Capital Management, and Phil McConkey, the former NFL player whose financial services firm, San Diego-based Academy Securities, managed the financing.

In a recent statement, GovX also named two new board members: David Alberga, the former CEO and chairman of The Active Network; and Thomas Davin, CEO of 5.11 Tactical, the Costa Mesa, CA-based provider of clothing, boots, and gear for law enforcement use.

GovX, founded in 2011, grew out of the experience that Marc Van Buskirk and his wife Shannon had operating an e-commerce site for Oakley, the Orange County maker of sunglasses, goggles, and other sporting accessories. Their website, US Standard Issue, sold Oakley products direct to military and government personnel at a discount.

After the Italian eyewear maker Luxottica acquired Oakley for $2.1 billion in 2007, the Van Buskirks started over, with the idea of offering thousands of premium brand products through an online marketplace operating exclusively for active duty, reserve, and retired U.S. military personnel, and government public safety workers.

GovX logoThe Van Buskirks founded GovX in late 2011 with their friend Tony Farwell, a financial expert with expertise in corporate governance and shareholder communications. The company wraps its lifestyle marketing with patriotic zeal, emphasizing that the men and women who serve and protect “deserve extra online savings,” and partnering with various military service associations.

GovX says it developed technology to verify members’ service records, and now has nearly two million active members. The company says it offers nearly 100,000 products from over 500 premium brands.

GovX also operates a ticketing platform for more than 65,000 events, including major professional sporting events, select college sports, auto racing and other events and concerts.

Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.