Spokane Valley-based e-commerce company Kaspien Holdings Inc. has been added to the Russell Microcap Index.

The company was added to the index on June 28 and will retain membership for one year, according to a press release. A representative of Kaspien didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. 

The Russell Microcap Index consists of about 2,000 small securities. According to financial website Investopedia, microcaps are small publicly-traded companies with a market capitalization of between $50 million and $300 million, which can be riskier and more volatile but can have above-average growth potential. 

Membership in the index means automatic inclusion in certain growth- and value-style indices. London-based FTSE Russell, the company that produces the Russell Microcap Index, determines membership for its indexes primarily by objective market-capitalization rankings and style attributes.

“Our inclusion into the Russell Microcap Index represents an important milestone and meaningful achievement in our development as a public company,” Kunal Chopra, Kaspien CEO, says in the release. “We appreciate being a part of this select group and expect our inclusion to bring added visibility within the broader investment community as we continue to build our reputation as a leading provider within the online marketplace ecosystem.”

Chopra says the Russell indexes provide influential benchmarking standards. Many investment managers and institutional investors for index funds use the Russell indexes. About $10.6 trillion in assets are benchmarked against Russell’s U.S. indexes.

FTSE Russell is a wholly owned subsidiary of London Stock Exchange Group that maintains, licenses, and markets stock market indexes.

Kaspien, formerly Trans World Entertainment Corp., was founded 1972 as a brick-and-mortar retailer. 

That company acquired Spokane-Valley-based e-commerce company etailz Inc. in 2016 and rebranded as Kaspien in 2020.

Spokane entrepreneurs Tom Simpson, Josh Neblett, and Sarah Wollnick started etailz as Green Cupboards initially.

Kaspien reported a net loss of $1.4 million, or 61 cents a share, in its fiscal first quarter ended May 1. The performance was an improvement compared with a loss of $5.4 million, or $2.97 a share, in the year-earlier quarter.

Like this story?
You’ll love the rest. Subscribe today, and you’ll receive a year’s subscription to the Journal of Business, unlimited access to this website, daily business news emails, and weekly industry-specific
e-newsletters. Click here for 50% off your first year.