Best Secret

Best Secret

Best Secret originated as Schustermann & Borenstein, a Munich-based clothing discounter whose origins trace to the 1920s. The Kraneis family later acquired the business and, under Moritz Kraneis, pivoted the model to a private, online shopping club — a format that predates ventures like Veepee and Gilt by years in the German market. The company operates a large-scale logistics campus in Aschheim, outside Munich, which anchors its physical and digital distribution. The firm sells over 2,000 brands — from Hugo Boss to Gucci — at steep discounts, keeping inventory risk low by structuring purchases around excess stock, end-of-season goods, and unsold retail orders. The model spans across fashion, home goods, and beauty, and the website is deliberately gated: access requires an invitation from an existing member. While revenue figures remain private, juwi, the renewable energy developer sold by the Schustermann & Borenstein group to MVV Energie in 2014 for an undisclosed sum, suggests the scale of capital available for adjacent ventures. Moritz Kraneis runs Best Secret as managing director and owner, alongside his brother Dominic, who manages the family's broader investment office, Schustermann & Borenstein GmbH. The group maintains a direct investing posture, occasionally backing external managers but primarily deploying capital through the operating company. In January 2022, Permira acquired a majority stake in Best Secret, valuing the platform at a reported €1 billion, in a deal that left the Kraneis family with significant minority ownership and operational control. Best Secret's structural edge is its closed-garden commerce model built on a family balance sheet. Without venture-capital timelines, the company invested ahead of revenue in warehousing and logistics when competitors were chasing top-line growth — a posture that let it preserve margin while scaling to millions of members across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.