Interview of Dave Bunch, CEO of Brand Aggregator Growve
Growve creates, acquires, aggregates, and grows brands in health, home, and lifestyle categories. Growve is a best-in-class Amazon/e-commerce marketplace operator and omnichannel marketers that expand their brands into retail and direct-to-consumer (DTC). They manage 25+ brands, generate $475+MM in annual revenue, and staff over 500 employees. In May 2021, Growve was able to secure $175 Million. The financing was backed by a banking syndicate comprised of Truist Bank, Compeer Financial, Wells Fargo, First Horizon Bank, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Synovus Bank, South State Bank, Atlantic Capital Bank, HSBC Bank USA and Seaside Bank and Trust. The $175 million credit facility comes on the heels of a minority investment from Palm Beach Capital.
Dave Bunch is CEO of this High Growth Company. Before being CEO at Growve, Dave spent 21 years at Nutraceutical as a key executive, helping generate a 3x return on invested capital with an over $600MM valuation. Dave managed M&A activity and was involved in over 50 acquisitions. Additionally, he managed sales and a team of 150 people that achieved the highest organic sales growth in over a decade. Dave earned an MBA from Brigham Young University and a BS of Finance with honors (Magna cum Laude) from Utah State University.
We Interviewed Dave. Here are some Exclusive Insider Insights from the company.
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What are Growve Plans for this FY 21-22?
Growve will continue to acquire and partner companies that fit within one of our six strategic verticals: active nutrition, beauty & personal care, dietary supplements, health & lifestyle foods, home & leisure, and pet care & nutrition. We currently have a robust pipeline of target companies and several under term-sheet that will close within the next 12 weeks. In addition to our dominant footprint domestically, we will continue to expand into international markets and add to our existing teams in Europe and Asia.
What do you attribute Growve success to?
While most other Amazon brand aggregators acquire an eclectic range of brands, then optimize their performance strictly for Amazon, our approach is different. Growve focuses on building and acquiring brands in health, home, and lifestyle categories, optimizing their Amazon performance, then, as appropriate, implement an omnichannel marketing and distribution strategy. This focus gives us a cross-promotional synergy in marketing multiple brands across multiple channels to common consumer profiles.
What is unique about your business? Is there a competitive advantage that you have over the rest?
Our omnichannel, integrated shared services platform makes us unique. We’re among the best Amazon and e-commerce operators, delivering hundreds of millions of revenue dollars annually. From ideation to creation, our creative services feature a world-class design team that can make your brand and products stand out in so many ways. Additionally, we have a national retail sales force and can access all significant retail accounts to give our brands major expansion opportunities. Our digital marketing team drives awareness, generates leads, and optimizes conversion to scale our marketing initiatives along every stage of the funnel.
We specialize in technology, formulation, brand identity, and packaging for go-to-market success regarding product innovation. Growve also has in-house expertise in specialized manufacturing which provides a distinct competitive advantage. Our vast supply chain relationships yield optimal agreements with traceability mechanisms to cover components given our broad range of brands. Furthermore, Growve specializes in distribution and logistics that integrates with all sales channels to make fulfillment stress-free and scalable for growth.
Why should brands partner with Growve?
Over the past two years, Growve net sales have doubled, and adjusted EBITDA has more than tripled. We gained a private equity partner in the past year and completed a $175MM bank syndication to fund acquisitions and other growth strategies. We allow acquired brand owners to roll equity and stay involved in the business, ensuring continuity, insights, and brand passion.
Employees are one of the most important players to succeed in business. What do you look for in an employee?
Company culture is a top priority. We embrace diversity, celebrate individuality, and act with integrity to cultivate a healthier, thriving organization that’s built to grow now and for the long term. Growve hires those who know how to work hard, play hard, and give generously. Whether serving our community through quarterly “Growve Gives” initiatives or engaging in company-sponsored wellness and team events, Growve is consistently recognized among the Great Places to Work! Everything we do is rooted in creating value with values. Employees must possess qualities of servant leadership, passion, integrity, respect, innovation, and teamwork.
Can you provide an example of a brand that Growve have successfully grown?
Launched this past spring, Fruily is a brand we developed, manufactured, and commercialized in-house. Our innovation team developed a solution based on the insight that many consumers are concerned about the prevalence of excessive processed sugars and synthetic additives in nutritional gummies. Fruily is the first broad line of certified organic nutritional gummies made with and exclusively sweetened by real fruit (no processed sugars). Fruily has been awarded back-to-back Buyer’s Choice Awards for the most innovative new product by food, drug, mass, and specialty retailers. Fruily has gained placement in over 15,000 retail stores (including Target, Kroger, CVS, RiteAid, Sprouts, and more) and Amazon, and every major e-commerce marketplace is also sold direct-to-consumer. Fruily successful launch has been supported by a multi-million-dollar advertising campaign, including social media and influencer marketing.
Growve journey is incredible and fast-paced. We have another Decacorn in the making.
