by 2016 it had received $236 million in venture capital financing over 5 rounds from volition capital, mark vadon, t. rowe price, new horizons fund, blackrock, allen & co, verlinvest and greenspring associates. by 2017, the company had revenue of approximately $2 billion and 51% of online pet food and litter sales in the us. it spent heavily on customer acquisition and retention; in 2017 forbes reported that its profitability was unclear. between 2017 and 2018, chewy’s sales increased from $2.1 billion to $3.5 billion, with 66% of sales coming from customers signed up for automatic recurring shipments.