2020, A Year In Review

The strength of Assembled Brands is our understanding of the DTC marketplace. The strategic data we collect allows us to develop partnerships with brands in a way that other lenders do not understand. Our data showed that our portfolio companies grew sales by 40% in 2020 over 2019, a true testament to the power of the direct to consumer transition that was pushed ahead by at least 5 years with Covid.

The vertical that fared best consists of companies providing goods related to personal care – whether it be skincare or sexual wellness. Here we saw brands grow by 100% and more. Apparel and athleisure was another strong performer as consumers demanded work-from-home friendly wardrobe upgrades with associated brands growing closer to 50% year over year.

Another interesting trend we saw develop was the demand for doorstep delivery alcoholic products. While traditionally an industry deeply rooted in a distributor model supplying grocery/liquor stores, we saw the budding of the direct to consumer movement take root.

Sectors that were hit hard related to commercial real-estate and travel, as both industries were materially dampened by quarantines and stay-at-home orders. As a whole, the Assembled Brands cohort grew by leaps and bounds – a testament to both the strong operators that Assembled Brands backs, and to our ability to provide working capital for growth even in the most unexpected of times.

However, being a partner is about a lot more than just being there when the times are good. Our team performed dedicated outreach with clients starting in late March to ensure that they were in position to withstand the economic realities of an unseen pandemic. We worked with multiple parties to make sure cashflow was sufficient for any downturn, and additionally upsized relationships that were primed for growth, resulting in facility line growth of nearly 10%.

The Way Forward in 2021

Moving forward into 2021, Assembled Brands has a number of exciting new initiatives on deck to better assist our portfolio companies in the pursuit of growing their brand equity.

Mobile Device Availability – We are relaunching our platform at assembledbrands.app and going mobile! Access our app from the convenience of your smartphone or tablet.

Anytime Access to our Vendor Network – We are thrilled to announce that we’ll be launching a view into our vendor network of trusted partners who will continue to help our brands grow in all aspects of their business.

Dashboards and Insights – Later in the year, Assembled Brands’ insights will be available via our platform that can be visited regularly to check on the health and success of the most critical business functions.

We’re excited to stay close with our network with some exciting new content that we will be releasing this year. We’d love to hear from you about the future of our products and features you might be interested in. Reach out to us at product@assembledbrands.com.