The Index: consumer & Shopify deal trackers.
The Index is my open data room: nine living trackers of who is raising, buying, exiting, shutting down, getting bought, and what they offer a first-time visitor across consumer brands and the Shopify ecosystem. Every entry is dated, sourced to filings and trade press, and rebuilt every week, so you get the current shape of the market instead of a roundup that froze on its publish date. Free to read, nothing to sign up for. It's the same buy-side lens I used running diligence at WIN Brands Group, kept public and current. Deals live here; the metric bands (conversion, CAC, churn, costs) live in the companion benchmark library.
Who compiles it. The Index is compiled by an early Shopify employee who helped build and scale the Partner Program, co-founded WIN Brands Group, and has built portfolios of consumer brands to mid nine figures in annual revenue, and sold an app company to Tiny. Deals come from company filings and trade press, cross-checked against public trackers. I bring that same buy-side read to Partner engagements, from seed-stage founders to Nike, Coca-Cola, and P&G. More on the track record.
Consumer-brand deal intelligence
Who's buying, exiting, and failingConsumer M&A since 2020, tracked five ways: who's raising and from whom, who the active acquirers are, every notable deal and exit, who ultimately owns the brands you know, and who shut down and why. If you're building toward a sale, the fastest orientation is the deal-by-deal view in the exits tracker, then the buyer-by-buyer view in the acquirer map.
Consumer Brand Funding Rounds
523 named raises of $3M or more logged since 2020, with a page for each year.
Who's Buying Consumer Brands
163 repeat acquirers mapped, each with two or more deals logged since 2020.
Consumer Brand Exits Tracker
1472 acquisitions and exits logged since 2020. Food and beverage leads the mix.
DTC Brand Ownership Map
1201 brands mapped to their current owner, with a page per category. e.l.f. owns Rhode; Henkel owns Olaplex; Unilever owns Liquid I.V.
Consumer Brand Shutdowns
182 shutdown and distress events logged since 2020. Allbirds sold its assets for $39M; Francesca's liquidated about 400 stores.
DTC Welcome Offer Tracker
152 welcome popups read side by side. Median offer 15% off; half gate the field behind a quiz or a yes/no; email is the first ask almost everywhere.
DTC Welcome Popup Directory
1,188 of 2,365 brands showed a welcome popup. The other half ask for nothing on a first visit.
Shopify ecosystem intelligence
Apps, exits, and AI commerceThe Shopify side of the market: which apps are getting acquired and at what price, and where a customer can buy inside an AI assistant. Both move fast and hide most of their numbers, which is why a dated ledger helps. For the wider view of where value is moving, see the Shopify ecosystem map.
Shopify App Acquisitions Tracker
12 deals logged. Recharge and Skio at $105M is the largest disclosed private deal. Only 3 of 12 published a price.
AI Checkout Tracker
6 shopping surfaces tracked. Meta's Muse agent joined in September 2026, buying through Stripe's Link.
Shopify Platform Deadlines Tracker
8 dated changes ahead, four of them before January 1, 2027. The next one is October 1, 2026.
How The Index stays current
Why living data gets returned toMost market roundups go stale the day after they publish. A deal ledger that stops in January is worse than useless by June, because the reader can't tell what's out of date. Every tracker in The Index is dated, every entry is sourced, and the whole set is rebuilt weekly as deals, exits, shutdowns, and platform changes get confirmed.
That cadence is also why these pages get returned to and cited. When someone asks who bought a brand, what an app sold for, or whether you can still check out inside ChatGPT, the honest answer changes month to month. Search engines and AI assistants pull from a reference that is dated, sourced and kept current, and operators trust it for the same reason. The counts above span the eight trackers and grow as the year runs, so treat the numbers as the shape of the market, not a quote on your specific brand or app.
What's inside The Index
The eight trackers at a glanceThe table lists every tracker, what it covers, roughly how many entries it holds, and when it was last refreshed. Each row opens the full page.
| Tracker | What it tracks | Entries | Last updated |
|---|---|---|---|
| Funding Rounds | Who's raising since 2020, by category, stage, and lead investor | 523 rounds · $3M+ each | Oct 2026 |
| Acquirer Map | Who's buying consumer brands since 2020, organized by buyer | 163 acquirers · 2+ deals each | Oct 2026 |
| Exits Tracker | Dated ledger of consumer acquisitions and exits, with price and multiple | 1472 deals | Oct 2026 |
| Ownership Map | Who actually owns the DTC brands you recognize | 1201 brands | Oct 2026 |
| Shutdowns Tracker | Which consumer brands failed or sold out of distress, and why | 182 events | Oct 2026 |
| App Acquisitions Tracker | Shopify app M&A, deal by deal | 12 deals | Sep 2026 |
| Welcome Offer Tracker | What DTC brands offer, ask and say in the first-visit popup, desktop and mobile | 152 popups · 235 brands | Sep 2026 |
| AI Checkout Tracker | Where you can buy inside ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Mode, Copilot, Meta Muse, and Amazon | 6 shopping surfaces | Sep 2026 |
| Platform Deadlines Tracker | Dated Shopify platform changes that force an app or merchant decision | 8 upcoming · 7 in force | Sep 2026 |
Updated weekly at a minimum, and more often as new deal intel lands. When a deal, exit, or shutdown is confirmed, it gets added.
Frequently asked questions
The fine print, answeredWhat is The Index?
The Index is Taylor Sicard Consulting's open data room: nine living trackers of consumer-brand and Shopify ecosystem activity. Each one is dated, sourced to company filings and trade press, and rebuilt every week, so the numbers stay current instead of freezing on the day they were published.
How often is The Index updated?
Weekly. Every tracker carries a last-updated stamp, and new deals, exits, shutdowns, and platform changes get added as they are confirmed. September 2026 is the current cut. A deal ledger is only useful while it reflects what closed last month.
Where does the data come from?
Company filings, official press releases, major wires, and consumer and commerce trade press such as Retail Dive, WWD, BeautyMatter, and BevNET, cross-checked against public deal trackers. Where a price was reported rather than officially disclosed, the tracker says so. Multiples are approximations, because enterprise value and revenue timing are rarely published cleanly.
Who is The Index for?
Founders building a consumer brand or Shopify app toward a sale, operators and investors mapping who the active buyers are, and anyone who needs to know what brands are actually selling for in 2026. It is the reference version of the buy-side diligence I ran at WIN Brands Group.
Can I cite or reference these trackers?
Yes. Each tracker is built to be quoted, with dated entries, named buyers, disclosed prices, and linked sources. If you are citing a figure, link the specific tracker page so readers can see the source and the last-updated date behind the number.
How is The Index different from the free tools?
The tools are calculators: you put your numbers in and get your result. The Index is reference data: dated ledgers of what is happening in the market, to read rather than compute. Together they answer two questions a founder has: how am I doing, and what is the market actually paying?