Three days ago, Unilever acquired Grüns — a supplement brand that makes dark green gummy bears — for $1.2 billion.
The company was founded in 2023. It didn't exist three years ago.
Grüns started as a direct-to-consumer brand, scaled aggressively on Amazon, became the number one greens supplement on the platform, and then expanded into Target, Walmart, Costco, and Sam's Club. By the time Unilever wrote the check, Grüns had surpassed $300 million in annualized revenue, had more than a million customers, and was shipping ten million gummies per day.
A green gummy bear. Three years. $1.2 billion.
That story should be a wake-up call for every supplement brand, every Amazon operator, and every PE firm sitting on a health and wellness portfolio company. Because Grüns didn't get acquired for $1.2 billion by treating e-commerce as a side channel. They got acquired because they understood that Amazon and DTC aren't cost centers. They're enterprise value multipliers.
Why This Matters to Me Right Now
I've been thinking about this a lot lately because I'm currently in discussions with a PE-backed VMS manufacturer about leading their e-commerce growth. I won't name the company, but here's what I can tell you: since being acquired by their PE partner, they've done something most supplement companies still haven't done.
They've shifted Amazon and e-commerce from an afterthought to a strategic priority.
They recognized that their Amazon channel — which represents a small fraction of total revenue today — is the single biggest lever for enterprise value creation between now and exit.
That shift in mindset is worth more than any ad campaign. And the dynamics driving it aren't unique to one company. They apply to every supplement brand selling on Amazon right now.
The $12.6 Billion Market Most Brands Are Underplaying
Amazon is the largest single retailer of vitamins, minerals, and supplements in the United States. Larger than Walmart. Larger than CVS. Larger than Target.
According to SPINS and ClearCut Analytics, Amazon generated $12.6 billion in VMS sales for the twelve months ending August 2023, and the number has only grown since.
The market is highly fragmented. The number one brand on the platform, Garden of Life, does roughly $350 million. That's less than three percent of the total. No single brand dominates.
In a fragmented market, execution beats brand size every time.
But here's the problem. Most supplement companies treat Amazon like something the marketing team manages with an agency. Something that gets ten minutes at the end of a quarterly business review. A line item, not a strategy.
PE firms are starting to see this differently. And the ones that get it right are creating massive value.
How PE Firms Actually Think About Amazon
When a private equity firm acquires a supplement company, they don't just look at revenue. They look at EBITDA. And they value the company based on a multiple of that EBITDA — typically eight to twelve times for VMS companies.
Here's where it gets interesting.
If your Amazon channel adds one million dollars in EBITDA contribution through better margins, improved advertising efficiency, or a smarter channel strategy (like category domination — tomorrow's article), that doesn't just add one million in value. It adds eight to twelve million dollars in enterprise value. Because the entire company gets valued at that multiple.
Let me say that again.
One million dollars in incremental Amazon profit can create eight to twelve million dollars in enterprise value.
That's not a channel management problem. That's a strategic asset. And it's exactly why the smartest PE firms are hiring dedicated e-commerce leaders for their portfolio companies instead of outsourcing to agencies.
The 1P to 3P Migration Is an Enterprise Value Event
One of the highest-leverage moves a PE-backed supplement brand can make on Amazon is migrating from 1P (Vendor Central, where Amazon buys your product at wholesale and controls pricing) to 3P (Seller Central, where you sell directly and own the customer relationship).
The margin improvement from this single decision can be twenty to fifty percent per unit.
For a supplement manufacturer doing seven to ten million on Amazon, that margin improvement alone could add one to two million dollars in incremental EBITDA. Apply the eight to twelve times multiple, and a single strategic channel decision just created ten to sixteen million dollars in enterprise value.
PE firms don't get excited about revenue growth that comes with margin compression. They get excited about profitable growth that compounds through the exit multiple. The 1P to 3P migration is one of the clearest paths to that outcome in the supplement category right now.
The Manufacturing Moat That Most Amazon Sellers Don't Have
Here's something that doesn't get talked about enough in the Amazon world.
If you're a vertically integrated manufacturer — meaning you own the production facility and control your own cost of goods — you have a structural advantage on Amazon that most brands can only dream about.
On Amazon, referral fees (fifteen percent), FBA fulfillment (three to five dollars per unit), and advertising costs are relatively fixed. COGS is the primary lever for margin improvement. When a typical Amazon brand sources from a contract manufacturer, their COGS is dictated by someone else's pricing. They're price takers.
But a manufacturer who makes their own product can optimize cost of goods at the source: adjust batch sizes, reformulate for margin, and respond to market shifts without waiting on a third party.
Owning that lever is a moat. And it's one of the reasons we're seeing increased PE acquisition activity in vertically integrated supplement manufacturers. The company that makes the product AND sells it directly on Amazon captures value at every step of the chain.
This is also why the Grüns story, while remarkable, is actually the exception that proves the rule. Grüns used contract manufacturing and reached $1.2 billion on brand strength and execution alone. Imagine what a vertically integrated manufacturer with the same e-commerce execution could build — with structurally better margins from day one.
Subscribe & Save Is the Recurring Revenue Model PE Firms Love
If you work in SaaS, you know that recurring revenue commands higher valuation multiples than one-time revenue. The same principle applies to consumer products.
Amazon's Subscribe & Save program is a subscription model for supplements. A customer signs up, gets automatic deliveries at a small discount, and the brand gets predictable, recurring revenue with lower customer acquisition costs on each subsequent order.
For PE-backed supplement brands, Subscribe & Save penetration is a KPI that directly impacts valuation. A brand with twenty percent of Amazon revenue in Subscribe & Save has fundamentally different revenue quality than a brand where every sale is a one-time transaction.
The first brand has a floor. The second brand starts from zero every month.
Every subscriber you add improves your contribution margin over time because your advertising cost per unit decreases with each renewal. That's a compounding effect that flows directly through to EBITDA.
Grüns understood this intuitively — ninety-five percent of their customers use the product four to six times per week, and their DTC subscription model was a core driver of the revenue quality that justified the $1.2 billion price tag.
Amazon Data Feeds the Entire Business
This is the part that most operators miss and most board members care about.
Amazon isn't just a sales channel. It's the world's largest consumer research panel for health and wellness.
Search Query Performance data tells you exactly what consumers are searching for, clicking on, and buying. If "magnesium glycinate for sleep" searches are up forty percent year over year and you don't have that product, that's a product development signal — not just an Amazon insight.
Review analysis reveals what consumers love and hate about your products in their own words. That's voice-of-customer data that product development and marketing teams would pay a research firm six figures to collect.
Sales velocity data improves manufacturing forecasts. Seasonal patterns inform production planning. Category trend data shapes innovation pipelines.
A well-run Amazon channel doesn't just generate revenue. It generates intelligence that makes retail, wholesale, international, and DTC smarter. That's an enterprise-wide asset, not a channel cost center.
The Organizational Gap: Agency Management Is Not Leadership
Here's where I see the biggest disconnect.
Most supplement companies outsource their Amazon channel to an agency. Some agencies are excellent and some fall extremely short. They manage campaigns, optimize listings, handle operations.
But an agency manages your account. A leader owns your P&L.
An agency optimizes for the metrics you tell them to optimize for. If you say grow revenue, they'll grow revenue — they might crush your margins doing it, but the number goes up. If you say hit a ROAS target, they'll hit it — they might leave growth on the table, but the efficiency number looks good.
What PE-backed companies need is someone who owns the complete picture. Someone who connects advertising spend to contribution margin. Connects fulfillment costs to unit economics. Connects pricing strategy to MAP enforcement and channel integrity. And connects all of it to EBITDA.
That's not an agency. That's a leader. And the difference between having one and not having one can be worth millions in enterprise value at exit.
Why This Is Personal
I co-founded a consumer products company that scaled to $72 million annually, primarily through Amazon and e-commerce. We exited through a nine-figure acquisition to a NASDAQ-listed company. I've managed over $81 million in ad spend and launched more than four thousand product offers across my career. I've been through the PE pressure cooker. I know what it feels like to have the CRO of the SPAC asking about contribution margin on a Tuesday afternoon.
I've also been the operator who manages the agency, fights the unauthorized sellers, optimizes the listings at 11 PM, and wakes up at 5 AM to check yesterday's numbers.
The supplement brands that win on Amazon aren't the ones with the biggest budgets. They're the ones with the best execution, the cleanest margins, and a leader who connects channel performance to enterprise value every single day.
The Conversation Is Just Getting Started
The VMS market on Amazon is $12.6 billion and growing. The broader U.S. supplement market hit $125 billion in 2025, fueled by the wellness movement and a generational shift where younger consumers are spending 1.5 times more than their parents on health and wellness products. The tailwinds are enormous.
And three days ago, a green gummy bear company that didn't exist in 2022 sold for $1.2 billion.
The brands with a manufacturing advantage, a smart channel strategy, and a profit-first operating philosophy will outperform brands three times their size. The PE firms are figuring this out.
The conversation is just getting started.
Dan Matejsek is the founder of RavingFans.ai and creator of PerfectASIN. 27 years of e-commerce experience. $572M in career online revenue. He currently consults with Amazon brands on listing optimization, advertising strategy, and AI-powered growth.
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