Dr Pepper Snapple Group closed its $1.7 billion cash acquisition of Bai Brands in January 2017, according to a LinkedIn post from Strand Equity. Strand announced a minority stake in Bai in June 2013.
The post describes Strand Equity as a family office founded by Ted Schwartz and Seth Rodsky that invests its own capital, has no limited partners and runs three strategies: services businesses, consumer growth, and Strand Brands, where it incubates and launches companies of its own. On the consumer side, it backs differentiated brands creating new verticals or disrupting legacy categories, according to the post.
Schwartz founded APAC Customer Services in 1973, built it into an outsourced customer service company employing more than 25,000 people and took it public in 1995, the post says. Rodsky launched Draper James with Reese Witherspoon in 2014 and co-founded Hello Sunshine in 2016. His bio credits him with helping disrupt the traditional endorsement relationship between entertainers and consumer brands, building marketing partnerships for Bai, HIPPEAS, Vita Coco, Sweaty Betty and Oatly.
Strand's portfolio has included Banza, Vita Coco, OLIPOP, Oatly, Vital Proteins, HIPPEAS and Van Leeuwen, according to the post, which says Strand's own site marks 16 of its 45 companies as realized. Vita Coco listed on Nasdaq in October 2021, and L'Oréal agreed to acquire Youth To The People in December 2021, naming Strand Equity among the investors behind the brand's growth.