Dallas—Edition Collective, a men’s e-commerce startup, has been acquired by a brick-and-mortar retail company, Q Fifty One.
Terms of the cash and equity deal were not disclosed. The 13-year-old Q Fifty One is based in Houston and owns and operates Q Clothier and Rye 51 stores in four cities nationwide. Q Clothier sells men’s custom clothing, while Rye 51 features more casual menswear.
Matt Alexander, founder and CEO of Edition, now becomes CEO of Q Fifty One Digital, which will manage the company’s online shopping business.
“Our business has grown to become an eight-figure, profitable enterprise without the web,” Raja Ratan, founder and president of Q Fifty One, said in a press release. “Now, with our acquisition, we’re ready to bolster that growth and extend our experiences into the digital world.”
The announcement comes three months after Alexander had to cut more than half of Edition’s team and deal with being locked out of its Dallas offices due to delinquent rent, D Magazine reported. Alexander told the publication that the startup needed to conserve cash due to a cooling in the retail investment sector.
Alexander founded what was originally called Need in 2013 with the idea to cut through what he called e-retail clutter and offer a “curated” selection of men’s clothing and accessories. “There are hundreds of millions of dollars in the men’s wear industry, but they don’t enjoy shopping,” Alexander told me for a story three years ago. “We’re exploring new ways to get men to be active in the retail world.”
A year later, Alexander launched Foremost, which offers lower-priced clothing to a younger crowd. Need and Foremost were subsequently merged into Edition Collection in 2015.
According to the press release, Ratan plans to continue expanding Q Fifty One’s footprint across the U.S., while Alexander will oversee the online expansion efforts of Rye 51 and Q Clothier to customers around the world.
