Foria has acquired sleep supplement brand Ned for an undisclosed amount.
The deal broadens Foria’s product portfolio beyond sexual wellness, menopause care and period relief in an in-demand sleep support category that it’s been keen to enter. Priced from $24 to $132, Ned’s merchandise spans tinctures, powders, capsules and topicals for sleep, focus, immunity and more, and they will continue to be sold under the brand’s name. Ned is available on its own website, Amazon and Erewhon, where Foria is also sold, and it produces a white-label magnesium product for the upscale grocer.
Jon Brandon, co-founder and CEO of Foria, says Ned is “a meaningful addition to our top line, but it’s an even more meaningful addition to our bottom line in the sense that we’re taking the brand and the assets and putting it onto our existing infrastructure and platform.” He adds, “Foria’s community has made it clear that sleep is one of their top wellness priorities. It is the No. 1 most requested area of wellness.”
Although it’s never not been a leading priority for people, Brandon points out that sleep is certainly “having a moment” in the consumer packaged goods industry today. From supplements to tracking devices, the global sleep aid market is expected to reach $64.15 billion this year and $89.11 billion by 2030, growing at a rate of nearly 6% over the next six years. Wellness influencers like extreme biohacker Bryan Johnson, who posted, “No sleep, no boners,” on social media platform X this week, are playing a pivotal role in advocating consumers to get their zzzs.
“The wellness market is increasingly focused on sleep, making this a key growth area for plant-based solutions,” says Brandon. “It being so connected to intimacy, it’s always been adjacent to us in the bedroom. Our products obviously are used in the bedroom, so [we’re] thinking about other ways that we can create more holistic solutions and offerings to our community.”
Ned and Foria share similar DNA. They were both born as cannabis-driven brands. Almost a decade ago, Foria’s first product was a THC intimacy oil. Confronting a challenging regulatory environment, Foria and Ned developed cannabinoid-free formulas. Ned’s popular Mellö range features key ingredients like magnesium, GABA and l-theanine.
Foria’s acquisition of Ned took only a few months to complete. Brandon met Ned co-founder Ret Taylor earlier this year and initially intended for Foria to collaborate with Ned. Soon, Foria began exploring the possibility of purchasing Ned. Brandon says, “The more I looked into it and started to go a little bit deeper into their business, I saw how complementary it could be to our business and how we could essentially put their products and brand onto our infrastructure and achieve a lot of great efficiencies, let alone introducing our communities and brands to each other.”
The majority of Ned’s revenue is recurring from its approximately 5,000 subscribers. The steady revenue stream made Ned’s business attractive to Foria and underscored that it has quality products consumers are loyal to. Foria would like to appeal to those consumers, too. Brandon says, “We’re talking to the same person.”
The deal wouldn’t have happened if Foria wasn’t in a position financially to do it. Brandon says the brand, which is carried by Ulta Beauty, is “profitable and growing,” healthy signs it didn’t previously show. “We had done the hard work the last couple of years of getting to profitable growth rather than non-profitable growth,” he says. “We got ourselves into a strong enough position that we could be opportunistic, and we could grow rapidly through something like this.”
Ned was bootstrapped until the acquisition. Foria raised funds on a rolling basis between 2016 and 2021 from several high-net-worth individuals, including former NBA star Al Harrington and his wife Michele. Its largest outside investment is from Gotham Green Partners, a private equity firm in the cannabis field.
With the acquisition of Ned, Foria is following in the footsteps of other sexual health and wellness brands using acquisitions to achieve greater scale. In 2022, menopause brand Joylux acquired postpartum care brand Mommy Matters in a stock deal. Last year, period care company The Flex Co. acquired sex education digital platform Allbodies. In January, sexual device maker Dame acquired Emojibator, and last month sexual wellness brand Hello Cake purchased lubricant brand Wet’s parent company Trigg Laboratories Inc.
For smaller brands trying to maintain overhead amid limited revenues, Brandon argues that growth through acquisition makes sense. He says, “The whole business, both brands, work better together with one overhead than with two.” CPG financial firm NP Capital Advisors advised on the deal.
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