E-commerce retailer The Hut Group (THG) has struck a $2bn boost which has valued its new business-to-business tech arm at $6.3bn - the same value that the whole company floated at last year.

The Manchester-headquartered listed group, which is best known for selling beauty and fitness supplements around the world, also has a division that covers online sales for third parties, called Ingenuity.

Japanese tech investment giant SoftBank has now bought an option to buy 19.9% of Ingenuity in a deal that sees it invest $730m in the group.

In a separate announcement, THG has agreed a $255m takeover of Bentley Laboratories, a US upmarket beauty products developer and manufacturer.

The group confirmed, on Monday night, a capital raising drive which is expected to raise gross proceeds of c.$1bn consisting of a subscription of approximately $730m from SBM and an institutional placing of up to $270m, with long-standing, technology-focused shareholder Sofina expected to participate in the placing in an amount of up to $85m.

The following day THG added that "ollowing strong demand in the bookbuild", the placing had been upsized by approximately an additional six million ordinary shares, increasing the gross proceeds from $270m to about $320m.

Barclays Bank, Citigroup Global Markets, Goldman Sachs International and Jefferies International are acting as joint global co-ordinators and joint bookrunners in respect of the placing.

Matthew Moulding, founder, executive chairman and CEO of THG, said: "We are delighted to announce this financial and trading partnership opportunity with SoftBank, one of the world's leading technology investors, recognising both the capability and inherent value of our proprietary technology platform, Ingenuity.

"The trading partnership opportunity is particularly exciting, providing Ingenuity with an unparalleled global growth opportunity.

"Furthermore, the combination of the acceleration of growth within Ingenuity and its separation into a distinct entity will enable THG to unlock significant incremental shareholder value over time.

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"The capital raise will provide meaningful capital to accelerate our strategic growth ambitions across our whole business.

"The acquisition of Bentley materially increases our capability in beauty manufacturing and product development, and strengthens our position as the leading digital beauty business globally."

The group said that it is anticipated THG Ingenuity shall be separated from into a THG owned and controlled subsidiary company.

A THG statement issued to the London Stock Exchange added: "THG has been successful in growing through disciplined M&A activity and this continues to be an important part of the group's strategy.

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"THG has an established record of acquiring, vertically integrating and digitalising brands from largely offline channels.

"Management's purpose for the IPO was to step change the group's access to funding to capitalise on the volume and scale of opportunities available.

"Structural market changes accelerated by Covid-19 have created an exceptional aggregated opportunity to expedite the group's stated goal of building a unique, digital-first, prestige beauty own-brand portfolio, supported by world class innovation and delivering category leading revenue growth and earnings margins.

"The net proceeds of the placing and the subscription will be used in effect to replenish and refinance the resources the company has invested in a number of strategic acquisitions announced in the last six months (including the $350m acquisition of Dermstore LLC), to finance the acquisition of Bentley announced today and to capitalise on multiple acquisition opportunities currently available to the group.

"In addition to the acquisition of Bentley, the Group is in advanced discussions with another highly earnings accretive beauty brand acquisition, as the division rapidly builds global leadership scale.

"Should the Group complete both these Beauty acquisitions, M&A investment during the current financial year will significantly exceed the market guidance of £250m p.a., nonetheless, this guidance remains unchanged for FY 2022 and beyond."

Established in 2002 in New Jersey, Bentley has more than 70 beauty brands.

Mr Moulding added: "The US is an important growth market for THG. This investment within our THG Labs division supports the group's vertical integration strategy, while further deepening our close and important relationships with brand owners across the global beauty industry.

"Bentley provides THG with US-based, pre-eminent in-house skincare and haircare new product development capabilities and manufacturing, which will be leveraged across THG's expanding own beauty brand portfolio, as well as THG's partner brands across Ingenuity and Beauty to embed THG even more deeply as a strategic partner to clients."