Before hopping to Rihanna’s latest fundraising haul of $115 million, AOC doesn’t recall ever writing that Jay-Z’s Marcy Venture Partners LLC was key in launching Savage X Fenty’s initial $50 million investment in 2019.

With Las Vegas now open and Culver City, Calif. opening on Feb. 12, Riri is rolling. Other 2021 locations include Houston, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. More details at WWD.

Jay-Z’s Marcy Venture Partners Was Original Savage X Fenty Investor

Reading that Jay-Z was on the investor’s list led by Neuberger Berman this week, I checked back on prior participation and note our error in not crediting Marcy Venture Partners previously as a key player on Savage X Fenty’s birthing team.

To be honest, this factoid is just another data bit on the deep roots and exciting synergy that LVMH and the Arnault family personally have into Black culture in America and beyond.

For those who don’t know, Jay-Z sold 50% of his champagne brand Armand de Brignac, aka Ace of Spades to LVMH in 2021.

While Kanye West runs his mouth around town about having final say on everything Ye, Jay-Z not only got a board seat in his LVMH financial transaction but the deal is an unusual 50-50 transaction.

In simple terms, Jay-Z and Bernard Arnault’s LVMH team must find consensus in a common brand marketing and financial strategy for Armand de Brignac. Both parties will create a new business investment paradigm in select cases — a team of equals — if they can pull off this unusual agreement without a massive boardroom fight.

To understand now that Jay-Z also had a hand in Savage X Fenty’s original funding is equally impressive.

AOC wrote last week that Savage X Fenty is coming for Victoria’s Secret and now we will watch the beginnings of a retail store rollout.

One factoid never discussed by Victoria’s Secret management is the significant percentage — a disproportionate percent when I was an executive in the company — of Black women who wear the Victoria’s Secret brand. I assume that the then smaller Latina customer segment has skyrocketed far beyond Miami in the last decade.

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The Natural Women of Color Competition for VS Customers

Besides the other headaches on the VS future profit plate, do they believe a significant portion of their women of color customer base will move to Savage X Fenty as the brand gains prestige and ease of purchase at retail? They should, in my opinion. Note also, that Rihanna has a surprising-to-me large cohort of white women as well.

I hadn’t see the “wall of bodies’ in the new Savage X Fenty store prototype, when commenting that the new VS store looks like a Kohl’s. It’s a perfectly fine, nice store — but also a store on a budget, no matter how Victoria’s Secret packages the discussion. Glamour? Sex appeal? Elegance?

Before moving to our next post on Kim Kardashian’s SKIMS — which is also on fire and doubled their valuation this week — let me say diplomatically that the customer has a clear choice between VS and Savage X Fenty. And the latter is the baby just learning to walk. Soon a bike with training wheels.

But energy and excitement? My money is on the new kids in the block — the boss ladies Rihanna and Kim Kardashian. Victoria’s Secret may have the “VS collective”, whatever they do. But the new kids are living, breathing women entrepreneurs who have intimate, tangible relationships with real people. And they have star power deeply embedded in driving popular culture.

So get your popcorn, and let’s watch what happens. ~ Anne