BRANDED Acquires Heyday To Form Essor, A Digitally-Native CPG Platform Elevating Challenger Brands Into Global Icons

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--BRANDED, a leading digital consumer products platform and acquirer of disruptive challenger brands, and Heyday, a pioneer in digital brand creation, have reached an agreement for BRANDED to acquire Heyday and form a new company, Essor. With more than one billion social views, hundreds of bestsellers and approximately $400 million in annual revenue with substantial and growing profitability, Essor will house an exceptional portfolio of rapidly growing health & wellness and lifestyle brands like Boka, Puracy, ZitSticka, FreshCap, OTOTO Design, Viking Revolution and Iron Flask. These brands are sold globally across digital marketplaces, direct to consumer channels and on the shelves of leading retailers including Target, Walmart and CVS.

The acquisition of Heyday not only enhances Essor's portfolio with a strong lineup of high-growth brands but also offers significant retail expansion capabilities and an innovative marketplace-first technology and data platform. Heyday has spent tens of millions of dollars developing its data platform, enabling efficiency at scale by applying data science and AI to digital merchandising and supply chain decisioning.

Essor leverages proven track records of both companies in applying its platform capabilities to scaling and transforming challenger brands into household, omni-channel and global brands, such as Boka, the premium oral care brand behind the #1 toothpaste sold online with more than 300% growth since its acquisition in 2022, and Puracy, one of the leading, natural household care brands trusted by millions of families with more than 20 million bottles sold since inception.

Essor will be led by a seasoned leadership team with Pierre Poignant, Co-Founder & CEO of BRANDED, to serve as CEO of Essor, Sebastian Rymarz, Co-Founder & CEO of Heyday, to take on the role of President, and Ben Kaminski, Co-Founder & Chairman of BRANDED, to serve as Chairman.

"Essor, which means 'taking flight' in French, perfectly captures our vision of elevating brands to new heights and propelling them into a future filled with limitless possibilities,” said Poignant. “This acquisition represents a significant milestone in our journey of becoming the leading digital-first CPG company. By combining our resources and expertise, we are uniquely positioned to take brands to new heights, delivering unmatched value to our customers and stakeholders."

“Joining forces with BRANDED strengthens our platform, and, importantly, our balance sheet, putting us in a prime position to take advantage of the accelerating wave of digital-native brand acquisition opportunities,” said Rymarz.

As part of this transformative transaction, Essor secured significant new equity investment and a new credit facility, bolstering its financial strength and positioning the company as one of the best-capitalized players in the space. The additional capital will support acceleration of Essor’s growth strategy, including both organic expansion and strategic acquisitions.

"We are excited to bring together the complementary strengths of BRANDED and Heyday,” said Kaminski. “Pairing Heyday’s tech and retail channel expansion capabilities with BRANDED’s proven operational excellence, new product development and global expansion playbook provides a defensible competitive advantage that multiplies the value we can unlock for our brands.”

The Raine Group served as exclusive financial advisor to Heyday in connection with the transaction.

For more information, please visit goessor.com.

About Essor

Essor, where brands take flight. We find digital challenger brands and supercharge them into iconic global legends that consumers love. As a next-generation consumer products platform, we leverage technology, industry expertise, and strategic collaborations to ignite growth and launch brands beyond expectations. Essor’s brand portfolio today includes a broad range of rapidly growing health & wellness and lifestyle brands like Boka, ZitSticka, Puracy, OTOTO Design, FreshCap, Iron Flask, Fullstar, numnum, Key Nutrients, and Viking Revolution that are sold on Amazon, Direct to Consumer channels, and through national retailers like Target, CVS, and Walmart. Essor and its predecessors have raised over $400 million from visionary investors such as The Raine Group, Premji Invest, Target Global, Declaration Partners, funds and accounts managed by BlackRock, Victory Park Capital, General Catalyst and Khosla Ventures. Essor was established in August 2024 after BRANDED’s acquisition of Heyday. BRANDED was originally founded in September 2020 by Pierre Poignant, Ben Kaminski and Alexis Lanternier. Heyday was originally founded in August 2020 by Sebastian Rymarz and Adam Gerchen.

Contacts

Media Contact:
tamara.sneider@powerdigital.com

First published on Fri, Sep 6, 2024

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Essor BRANDED Heyday Digital Consumer Products Acquisition Challenger Brands Health & Wellness Lifestyle Boka Puracy ZitSticka Retail Expansion Marketplace-First Technology

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BRANDED Acquires Heyday To Form Essor, A Digitally-Native CPG Platform Elevating Challenger Brands Into Global Icons

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