Real businesses. Real problems. Real results.

BACKGROUND

Homie was founded in 2015 in the great state of Utah. Since then, Homie has saved clients over 100 million dollars in unwanted commissions and fees, all while putting thousands of people on the path to homeownership and wealth they can count on. The name Homie comes from someone you can always rely on, no matter what.

CHALLENGE

The rapidly growing startup Homie needed part-time financial support to design and execute a scalable financial solution to prepare them for growth and raising capital.

SOLUTION

Ampleo placed an experienced controller on a part-time basis to oversee the entire financial process from reporting to payments and forecasting. Homie now has a reliable, scalable finance team they rely on to see things they wouldn’t have anticipated through their growth and has successfully raised over $15M.

CONTINUED SUCCESS

Homie continues to grow, expand to different markets, and provide new services and programs to help give buyers a leg up on the competition.

BACKGROUND

GeoPointe is a B2B software company based out of Orange, California. GeoPointe is a top-rated Geolocation software that provides configurable solutions for sales, marketing, and development teams to improve efficiencies and streamline processes. At the time of the engagement, GeoPointe had over 1,500 customers with end users all over the world.

CHALLENGE

GeoPointe was a bootstrap startup that had grown into several million in recurring revenue without any debt or equity investment. The CEO noticed emerging competitors and wanted to expand by finding the right investment partners and by launching or acquiring additional products. Management had difficulty knowing how fast they could grow without having to raise funds, or what funds would be needed to support their growth plans.

SOLUTION

GeoPointe and Ampleo worked together to analyze the overall financial performance of the business against key metrics, convert their cash accounting to accrual accounting, build financial strategies, and plan capabilities to support accelerated growth plans.

Initially, GeoPointe used debt financing to build out a larger team and to support an increase in sales at a rate that was sustainable. After a year, the company determined it was time to find the right investment partner. Ampleo provided strategic and operational advice through the operations and investment search period. After the acquisition with The Ascent Group, Ampleo supported the team for about a year until they were fully integrated into the shared services team of The Ascent Group.

CONTINUED SUCCESS

GeoPointe continues to grow and succeed with The Ascent Group and has merged with an Ascent formerly named Level Eleven.

INTRODUCTION

DripEZ is a fast-growing e-commerce brand that scaled from a small startup to an eight-figure business in just four years. As the company grew, its financial infrastructure couldn’t keep pace. AVL Growth Partners stepped in to bring structure, clarity, and the fractional finance team DripEZ needed to keep scaling with confidence.

CHALLENGE

DripEZ’s rapid growth outpaced its accounting setup. The business had relied on a small local accounting firm operating on a cash basis, a system that worked early on but became untenable as the company scaled. When DripEZ needed to transition to accrual accounting to accurately track profitability and inventory, the firm couldn’t support it and effectively walked away, leaving DripEZ without clean financials heading into Q4, their biggest quarter of the year.

For nearly three months, the team had no real visibility into where the business stood. CEO David Barton knew they needed more than a single hire. They needed a team.

SOLUTION

AVL Growth Partners embedded a full fractional finance team into DripEZ, including a CFO, senior accountant, and bookkeeper, all working in coordination. Together they tackled the transition from cash to accrual accounting, cleaned up years of books, and built the financial infrastructure the business had been missing.

The team focused on:

• Transitioning the company to GAAP-compliant accrual accounting
• Establishing financial SOPs across the organization
• Improving visibility into multi-channel revenue tracking, including Amazon and Shopify
• Setting up Bill.com to streamline expense management and vendor payments
• Educating the broader team on how day-to-day decisions show up in the books

RESULTS

AVL helped DripEZ go from flying blind to running a financially mature operation.

• The books finally made sense. AVL transitioned DripEZ from cash to accrual accounting and cleaned up years of financials, giving leadership real visibility into the business for the first time.
• Savings hiding in plain sight. With cleaner books came clarity. DripEZ identified nearly $500K in avoidable expenses they simply couldn’t see before.
• A strong return on the investment. For every dollar spent with AVL, DripEZ found a dollar in savings, making the engagement pay for itself.
• Payments streamlined, pressure reduced. The Bill.com setup removed a significant operational burden and brought consistency to how the team managed expenses.
• The whole org got smarter about finance. New SOPs helped everyone understand how their decisions show up in the books, changing how the team thinks and operates.

CONCLUSION

For a founder growing fast without a finance background, AVL Growth Partners delivered exactly what DripEZ needed: an experienced, coordinated team that could clean up the past, build for the future, and give leadership the visibility to make smarter decisions. AVL didn’t just help DripEZ keep up with its growth, they helped the company understand it.

DBSI, Inc. was the lead case in 172 jointly administered bankruptcy cases that were filed in November 2008. The company was the originator of thousands of TIC (tenant in common) limited liability companies and limited partnerships. DBSI, Inc. through its many related companies offered investments, real estate development, and property management services to thousands of investors before its November 2008 filing. At the time of filing, approximately 25,000 claims were filed. Early in the case, an examiner was appointed who found significant comingling of funds had occurred and recommended the appointment of a chapter 11 trustee. A trustee (James Zazzali, former New Jersey Supreme Court Chief Justice) was appointed. He retained Myers & Co., Consultants, LLC as the financial manager for this complex case, who in turn retained Mr. Donovan and Mr. McKinlay as on-site managers. At the confirmation hearing in October 2010, Judge Walsh remarked that the DBSI case was one of the most complicated cases he had experienced in all his time on the bench.

Mr. Donovan’s and Mr. McKinlay’s duties, in this case, included the development of sophisticated financial models to assist with the substantive consolidation of the many entities, a forensic accounting of the Debtor’s books and records to establish grounds for substantive consolidation, the liquidation of assets including dozens of real property assets, the supervision of claims review and objection process including a focus on Secured, Administrative, and Priority tax claims resulting in the reduction of millions of dollars in tax claims and the abatement of related penalties. They also provided significant litigation support and forensic accounting to prosecute claims on behalf of the Trustee and trust beneficiaries. They are also preparing and filing the quarterly UST 2015 reports with the Court.

Mr. Donovan and Mr. McKinlay administered a liquidating plan across 22,000 creditors, with damages asserted totaling over $100 billion.

BACKGROUND

In 2013, Cupbop started as a Korean BBQ food truck in Salt Lake City. They have now grown into a household local quick-service restaurant brand with a total of 36 store locations and several food trucks. Cupbop dreams of becoming the first Korean food-based national chain in the US, as they focus on incorporating the values of fun, fast, giving, and Korean love into their business.

CHALLENGE

After establishing a name for themselves in their market, the Cupbop team was ready to make a push for growth. However, their CEO and founder, Jung, quickly realized a commitment to stabilized growth meant a deliberate assessment of their financials and a solid system to gain valuable insights. At the time, Cupbop had 14 separate QuickBooks accounts. Consolidations took days to put together, and real-time reporting of the business was not yet developed. After determining it was time to bring a part-time CFO into the picture, Jung took on the guidance of an Ampleo consultant.

SOLUTION

Ampleo provided a financial expert ready for action. After making a thorough assessment of Cupbop’s business structure, processes, and reporting, Ampleo’s part-time CFO acted as the impetus for strategic growth, resulting in an explosion of efficiency and scaling. Ampleo aided Cupbop in identifying an enterprise restaurant accounting system that would meet their needs, resulting in real-time reporting and consolidation. As a result of establishing one common system, Ampleo was also able to simplify the payroll process and credit card charges. Ampleo also helped Cupbop understand its business as a whole by providing easy access to actionable insights via backing Cupbop’s database and building custom BI reports.

CONTINUED SUCCESS

Cupbop powers forward in its industry and is expanding rapidly. In May 2022, Cupbop appeared on the TV show Shark Tank, where they received one million dollar offers from all five sharks. Cupbop ultimately accepted a deal with Mark Cuban and is excited about the continued growth of becoming a national chain in the US.

Ampleo consultants were retained by Sandy Road Farms, Inc. on the advice of the secured lender to be the company’s Chief Restructuring Officer to accomplish the liquidation of a 180,000 head hog facility. In this capacity, Ampleo is caring for the animals from birth through slaughter, administering an orderly sale of livestock, equipment, and real property. Ampleo is negotiating with impaired creditors, managing staff, and serving as the company’s sole officer.

BACKGROUND

SaltStack is a forward-thinking software company based in Lehi Utah. SaltStack develops systems management software used by the world’s largest businesses and Web-scale infrastructures for data center automation, hybrid cloud building and orchestration, server provisioning, and application configuration management. They help cloud builders, data center operators, and enterprise IT organizations automate the most difficult and complex cloud management tasks with the speed and flexibility required by the most-advanced computing environments. Ultimately, SaltStack is used to manage all the data center things including any cloud, infrastructure, virtualization, application stack, software, or code.

CHALLENGE

Once they proved their product, SaltStack recognized the need to be organized financially as they scaled their business and prepared to take on equity capital.

SOLUTION

Ampleo provided a proven CFO to assist its current financial team to develop meaningful and generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) financials, as well as helped create its first set of Software as a Service (SAAS) operating metrics. Ampleo’s ability to scale through the process allowed SaltStack to grow to scale while staying lean. Recently, Ampleo assisted SaltStack in raising $30M in capital. When the time was right to hire a full-time financial resource, Ampleo assisted in finding qualified and experienced candidates for the position.

CONTINUED SUCCESS

SaltStack has continued its dizzying growth, raising capital opportunistically, and is one of the most admired and sought-after software investments in Utah.

BACKGROUND

Rain is a self-described, scrappy software company based in Springville, Utah. The company offers a cloud-based, all-in-one point-of-sale and website system with integrated inventory that is Mac OS and Windows compatible. Their software includes point-of-sale (POS), website, rentals, service/repairs, class management, and more in one system. The software is designed for small-to-medium-sized specialty retailers (e.g., music stores, scuba retailers, furniture stores, ski and snowboard shops).

CHALLENGE

Rain had built an excellent product and had consistent growing recurring revenue with what they believed were good underlying economics. However, the data supporting their belief wasn’t easily accessible, and they needed a partner to help define and build the systems and procedures that would provide the reliable information they required. Rain’s leadership team sought to bring on a valuable strategic partner that would fit their culture.

SOLUTION

Rain selected Ampleo and one of their CFOs to quarterback the finance and accounting team and processes. Ampleo began with an assessment of the team and found that their practices were leading to less than reliable information. The Rain finance team and Ampleo worked together to improve procedures that led to consistent, reliable, and timely financial reporting. Ampleo also led the implementation of a data analytics tool that provided the company with industry-standard software metrics to measure their business.

Once the time was right in Rain’s growth cycle, Ampleo assisted with the hiring and selection of a full-time senior finance professional. Despite hiring their own replacement, Ampleo remains an advisor to the CEO and is regularly involved in other strategic and operating discussions.

CONTINUED SUCCESS

Rain continues its steady and healthy growth, and has turned the corner into profitability. Entity value has increased significantly and the company is humbly and quietly taking the SMB retail POS world by (rain)storm.

BACKGROUND

Purple Innovation, Inc. designs and manufactures mattresses, pillows, and cushions. It markets and sells its products through its e-commerce online channels, retail brick-and-mortar wholesale partners, third-party online retailers, and through Purple retail showrooms. The company was founded in 2010 by brothers Tony and Terry Pearce and is headquartered in Lehi, Utah.

CHALLENGE

The finance team at Purple was not able to close financials timely or accurately, and they were rapidly approaching a public filing.

SOLUTION

Multiple Ampleo resources filled the gaps in the team in the race to the public filing and completion of the financial audit, resulting in an initial public offering greater than $600 million.