Who Owns Boxed?

Chieh Huang, Jared Yaman, Christopher Cheung, and William Fong founded Boxed in August 2013, shipping the first orders from Huang's garage in Edison, New Jersey. The pitch was Costco without the membership fee or the store: bulk-sized household essentials ordered online and delivered to the door.

The startup attracted major venture capital, raising more than $250 million across rounds including a $111 million investment from Japan's Aeon Group in 2018. It opened fulfillment centers in New Jersey, Nevada, and Texas and built its own software stack, winning a loyal customer base among suburban households and small businesses.

Boxed went public in June 2021 through a merger with SPAC Seven Oaks Acquisition Corp., listing on the NYSE under ticker BOXD at a valuation approaching $900 million. The timing was poor: post-SPAC cash burn, slowing growth, and heavy fulfillment costs squeezed the company as capital markets closed.

The end came quickly. Boxed filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on April 2, 2023, unable to fund operations. MSG Distributors bought the brand assets that August, and the original corporate entity was wound down through the bankruptcy process.

MSG relaunched Boxed.com in July 2024 on the Spresso platform, an e-commerce technology company that was itself the software division of the old Boxed, spun out during the collapse with backing from BlackRock-managed funds and led by Boxed co-founder Jared Yaman. The revived site sells bulk essentials, wholesale club brands, and household goods, again without membership fees.

The relaunched operation is deliberately smaller: rather than venture-funded national fulfillment, it runs on MSG's existing distribution infrastructure, a quieter but more sustainable version of the original idea.