St. Louis-based clothing brand Summersalt just raised $17.3 million in Series B funding and its founder and CEO said the company's goal is to "provide joy in all of our products."
The company, which launched in 2017 with a line of direct-to-consumer swimwear, uses recycled materials in its popular $95 swimsuits.
"We would never say never [about partnering with a company like Walmart or Amazon] but really the roadmap moving forward is to speak directly to our consumers, cut out the middle-man, and offer a better product for a better price," CEO Lori Coulter told Cheddar. Coulter, a former design professor and swimwear designer, founded Summersalt with marketing and brand consultant Reshma Chattaram Chamberlin.
Summersalt's second round of funding was led by Utah-based venture capital firm Mercato Partners. It last raised $8 million in April in a Series A round and is backed by firms including Founders Fund and Lewis and Clark Ventures.
"We're super excited about the funding," Coulter said. "The main thing we're doing is to continue to deliver on our promise to provide joy in all of our products, to infuse joy in all of our products that we're expanding to."
Since its launch with swimwear, Summersalt has expanded to travel-wear and sleepwear. Chattaram Chamberlin said in a press release "from the moment we launched Summersalt our goal was to own every corner of our customer's suitcase and with this latest round of funding we are one step closer to this."
Joe Cecela, Dream Exchange CEO, explains how they are aiming to form the first minority-controlled company to operate an exchange in U.S. history. Watch!
A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
