Summer Infant
Summer Infant is a best-selling brand of affordable lightweight strollers. The company has several strollers on the Amazon best-seller list with most models in the under $100 category. Summer Infant strollers are sold widely in stores and online.
Summer Infant started in 1985 as a company that sold bouncy seats and baby monitors. Located in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, Summer became one of the first baby product companies to go public in 1992 when it stock traded on the NASDAQ.
"Summer Infant was first incorporated in 1985 and saw meteoric growth throughout the early 1990s, thanks to one father's desire to calm a fussy baby," according to a profile. on the company in a Rhode Island newspaper.[1] "William Lockett III was looking for a way to sooth his daughter, Summer, and noticed the child would quiet when he bounced her in his arms. The Rhode Island native designed what is believed to be the very first "bouncy seat," a product so popular that it has been duplicated in some form by nearly every company that makes baby gear, and is now considered a standard purchase for most new parents."
The company's fortunes dimmed in the 1990's:
The company grew to around $10 million in annual sales by the mid 1990s, but then shrunk through the later end of the decade. By the time (soon-CEO) Jason Macari discovered Summer Infant operating from a small office in Lincoln in 2001, it had shrunk to just over $1 million in annual sales.
Macari, a Smithfield native in his late 30s with experience in the baby products industry, was looking to create a business of his own.
"The company was losing money and it really should have been liquidated at that point, but it had everything you need for a start up business," said Macari. An engineer by trade with a master of business administration from Bryant University, Macari bought the company and focused his energy on product development.
"We started innovating and came out with some new products," he said.[2]
Under new leadership, Summer expanded into strollers (early 2000's) as well as swaddling products (SwaddleMe brand), baby bottles (Born Free), among other categories.
In 2016, Summer Infant was acquired by Kids2Inc for $1.1 billion. Kids2Inc sells infant and toddler products under the brands Baby Einstein®, Ingenuity®, and Bright Starts®.