The Index: consumer & Shopify deal trackers.
The Index is my open data room: seven living trackers of who is raising, buying, exiting, shutting down, and getting bought across consumer brands and the Shopify ecosystem. Every entry is dated, sourced to filings and trade press, and rebuilt every month, 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.
Living data, not a one-time roundup. The Index is compiled by an early Shopify employee who helped build and scale the Partner Program, co-founded WIN Brands Group (scaled to mid nine figures in annual revenue, profitably), and sold an app company to Tiny. The deals are pulled from company filings and trade press, cross-checked against public trackers, and it's the same buy-side lens I use in client work, 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 failingThe 2026 consumer M&A window, 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
75 named raises of $3M or more logged so far. Largest: a $575M round; OLIPOP raised $200M.
Who's Buying Consumer Brands
100+ acquisitions mapped across three buyer camps. Largest: L'Oreal buying Creed, about $4.6B.
Consumer Brand Exits Tracker
109 notable acquisitions and exits logged from 223 tracked deals (Jan 1 to Jul 8). Food and beverage led volume.
DTC Brand Ownership Map
4 owner types, hundreds of brands mapped. e.l.f. owns Rhode; Henkel owns Olaplex; Unilever owns Liquid I.V.
Consumer Brand Shutdowns
13 notable failures logged so far. Allbirds sold its assets for $39M; Francesca's liquidated about 400 stores.
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 actually buy inside an AI assistant today. Both move fast and hide most of their numbers, which is exactly why a dated ledger helps. For the wider view of where value is moving, see the Shopify ecosystem value map.
Shopify App Acquisitions Tracker
10 deals logged. Recharge and Skio at $105M is the largest disclosed private deal. Only 3 of 9 published a price.
AI Checkout Tracker
4 shopping surfaces tracked. ChatGPT pulled in-chat checkout in March 2026 after roughly 30 Shopify merchants went live.
How The Index stays current
Why living data gets returned toMost market roundups are dead 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 stale. The Index is built the opposite way: every tracker is dated, every entry is sourced, and the whole set is rebuilt monthly 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. A living, dated, sourced reference is the thing search engines and AI assistants pull from, and the thing an operator actually trusts. The counts above span the seven trackers and grow as the year runs; treat the numbers as the shape of the market, not a quote on your specific brand or app.
What's inside The Index
The seven trackers at a glanceEvery tracker, what it covers, roughly how many entries it holds today, and when it was last refreshed. Each row opens the full page.
| Tracker | What it tracks | Entries | Last updated |
|---|---|---|---|
| Funding Rounds | Who's raising in 2026, by category, stage, and lead investor | 75 rounds · $3M+ each | Jul 2026 |
| Acquirer Map | Who's buying consumer brands in 2026, organized by buyer | 100+ acquisitions · 3 camps | Jul 2026 |
| Exits Tracker | Dated ledger of consumer acquisitions and exits, with price and multiple | 109 deals · from 223 tracked | Jul 2026 |
| Ownership Map | Who actually owns the DTC brands you recognize | 4 owner types · 100s of brands | Jul 2026 |
| Shutdowns Tracker | Which consumer brands failed or sold out of distress, and why | 13 brands | Jul 2026 |
| App Acquisitions Tracker | Shopify app M&A, deal by deal | 9 deals | Jul 2026 |
| AI Checkout Tracker | Where you can buy inside ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Mode, and Amazon | 4 shopping surfaces | Jul 2026 |
Updated monthly at a minimum, and more often as new deal intel lands, sometimes several times a day. 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: seven living trackers of consumer-brand and Shopify ecosystem deal activity. Each one is dated, sourced to company filings and trade press, and rebuilt every month, so the numbers stay current instead of freezing on the day they were published.
How often is The Index updated?
Monthly. Every tracker carries a last-updated stamp, and new deals, exits, shutdowns, and platform changes get added as they are confirmed. July 2026 is the current cut. Living data is the whole point: a deal ledger is only useful if it reflects what closed last month, not last year.
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 that you read rather than compute. Together they answer both questions a founder has: how am I doing, and what is the market actually paying.