Myro is raising a Crowd SAFE at a $15 million valuation with no discount. Based on 2019 revenues, this is a very fair valuation; the company made over $6.5 million in revenue that year, so a $15 million valuation represents a revenue multiple of less than 2.5x, which is extremely fair for a consumer products company. Investors should note one major caveat: Myro’s revenues declined significantly in 2020, to about $1.8 million. By participating in a round with this valuation, investors are betting that Myro can return quickly to 2019 performance (without having to raise significantly more capital); it’s too soon to say whether the company is on track to overcome its 2020 challenges. Therefore, Myro’s price rating is only moderately high. 

In its current stage, Myro sits in a niche industry; the natural deodorant market was valued at just $62.9 million in 2018. The market is growing rapidly, at a 14.1% projected CAGR, but is still a very narrow slice of consumer spend on personal care products. It’s worth noting that Myro is competing against well-known natural brands like Tom’s and Schmidt’s in the natural deodorant category, which further reduces its obtainable market. 

That being said, Myro plans to expand into additional personal care categories within the next several months; its lines of refillable body washes and refillable body sprays will be released in 2021. The bath and shower products market is much larger, estimated at over $41 billion; in the future, Myro will likely continue to expand into personal care markets of increasing size. With each product line launch, Myro expands its addressable market significantly; therefore, the company’s market rating is decent despite its current niche focus. 

Myro was founded by Greg Laptevsky, a seasoned marketer and growth executive with almost 15 years of experience helping brands acquire customers. In his most recent role, Laptevsky served as the VP of Acquisition Marketing for Plated, a meal service company that was acquired by Albertsons in 2017. Previously, Laptevsky held various paid marketing roles for companies and agencies; he holds an MBA in Marketing and Entrepreneurship from CUNY Baruch. 

Myro had a large team going into 2020, but had to lay off the majority of staff when it encountered supply chain issues and distribution challenges. These days, the Myro team includes two other executives: Jenna Boff, Head of Sales, and John Wergeles, COO. Boff joined Myro at the end of last year, and lends the company a decade of experience in sales and account management for consumer products. Wergeles has even deeper expertise, with over 25 years of experience in business, marketing, and operations; he’s served as a COO twice before, including (most recently) for a skincare company. 

In sum, Myro has a team with deep experience in business, sales, and marketing. However, these team members have not worked together before, and none of them has particular experience in sustainable products, personal care product development, or as the founding executives of growing startups. Therefore, Myro’s team score is middle-of-the-road. 

Lack of differentiation is one of Myro’s biggest challenges. Many companies are offering sustainably-packaged personal care products, and a partially-overlapping sphere of companies are offering natural deodorants. While Myro’s reusable, natural deodorant concept might have seemed cutting-edge in the last several years, these days there’s no shortage of companies with similar branding solving similar challenges for consumers. These competitors include mainstream names like Tom’s and Schmidt’s; while these brands don’t offer reusable packaging (at least not for their main product line), they are already approaching household-name status in this category. 

Moreover, Myro’s products aren’t particularly defensible. The company doesn’t mention any focus on patenting its deodorant formulas or packaging concepts, leaving it open to competitors who could reproduce products. It also seems like competitors could potentially improve Myro’s formulas; many customer reviewers complain of rashes from Myro deodorants, which means Myro is at risk of being replaced by similar, more effective alternatives. As a result, Myro’s differentiation rating is its lowest. 

Myro’s financial performance is a tale of two very different years. If looking solely at 2018 versus 2019 financials, the company enjoyed dramatic success; 2018 revenues of just under $200,000 were absolutely dwarfed by over $6.5 million in revenue in 2019. Of course, Myro was not profitable for either of these years, and rather deeply so: net losses were $1.8 million and $7 million in 2018 and 2019, respectively. Nonetheless, the company’s year-over-year revenue growth between 2018 and 2019 is almost unheard of among companies raising crowdfunded rounds. Our performance ratings take these figures into account, as they’re the only formal financials filed with the SEC; therefore, Myro’s performance rating is very high. 

However, potential investors must be aware of a major caveat when evaluating Myro. The company had an extremely difficult year in 2020; revenues were slashed to just $1.8 million, per CEO Greg Laptevsky’s comments in the Republic forum. Apparently, the company faced severe supply chain difficulties that caused ripple effects throughout the business, and these events are shrouded in a bit of mystery; Myro doesn’t explain them head-on in the main company raise page. It seems that Myro products were pulled off of shelves at Target, perhaps for product quality issues as a result of supply chain difficulties; now Myro is engaged in a nearly $20 million lawsuit for damages. Therefore, Myro is facing significant operating risks, and these facts significantly temper its financial outlook. 

Myro faces meaningful risks on several fronts. First, and most meaningfully, Myro is at significant financial risk; revenues plummeted in 2020, debts are high, operations are deeply unprofitable, and the results of a huge lawsuit over supply chain issues could make or break the company’s fiscal stability. Myro’s team also supplies additional risk; none of the company’s executives have significant startup experience, and they are being tested tremendously during this difficult period. Other risks include market (natural deodorant is still a niche category), investment terms (no discount at a revenue valuation that is quite high relative to 2020 revenues), and funding risk (the company might not be able to raise enough to sustain operations if its woes continue). Potential investors should carefully consider each of these risks when considering participating in this raise. 

In 2019, Myro seemed to be a hugely successful consumer brand that experienced tremendous year-over-year revenue growth and was launching huge retail partnerships with giants like Target. Then, everything went south. 2020 seems to have been a near-fatal year for the company; though it still generated almost $2 million in revenue, those proceeds were less than a third of 2019 revenues. Myro had to pull back from its in-store partnership with Target, a relationship that seems to have been sustained to some degree (Myro products are currently available on Target.com). There’s a good deal of mystery surrounding these circumstances; 2020 isn’t addressed head-on in Myro’s raise materials, and some comments in the Republic forum and throughout other venues like Reddit and Amazon reviews seem to indicate that Myro’s products might cause rashes and other unpleasant side effects. 

Therefore, there’s a great deal of risk in this investment. Myro seems to be somewhat stable, but might not be able to bounce back to its 2019 highs. Potential investors might also be turned off by how little Myro’s leadership team addresses these concerns. Some might feel that, despite attractive lifetime revenues, this company is just too much of a wild card to invest. 

Myro seems to be at a pivotal moment in its trajectory; can it recover from the adverse impacts of 2020? While it’s still a bit too soon to say, potential investors should note that the company still generated just under $2 million in revenue despite having a very difficult year. Myro’s direct-to-consumer e-commerce performance is strong, with solid reorder rates and a decent (though not amazing) customer acquisition cost to lifetime value ratio. Moreover, the company has many exciting retail partnerships in the works, and plans to sell in roughly 10,000 stores by next year. 

There are really two ways to read Myro’s current struggles: the company was mismanaged and nearly went under in 2020, or 2020 circumstances caused unexpected challenges that Myro’s management team was able to navigate through, coming out on the other side with almost $2 million in revenue. Potential investors that adhere to the latter reading might reasonably feel as though this company has been battle-tested and emerged bruised, but still alive: that’s a testament to Myro’s underlying products, business model, and leadership team, which is a good sign for future growth. 

Myro is a consumer products company selling natural deodorant pods cased in reusable plastic tubes. The company promotes sustainability on two fronts, with its vegan, non-toxic deodorant formulas and with its refillable pod model that cuts down on single-use plastic deodorant containers. Consumers have bought into this mission: Myro has generated over $8 million in revenue over the last 3 years, and has forged wholesale relationships with many of the country’s leading retail chains. 

On the other hand, Myro faced significant struggles in 2020, navigating supply chain difficulties that seem to have caused product quality issues and a pullback from Target shelves. Audited 2020 financials aren’t available, so investors can’t evaluate the full extent to which the company suffered; slashed revenues, high expenses, large debts, and the uncertainty of legal action against suppliers are all areas of concern. Therefore, Myro has been rated a Neutral Deal. 

For questions regarding the KingsCrowd staff pick or ratings for this company, please reach out to support@kingscrowd.com.