Private equity firm Freeman Spogli invested in Vio Med Spa, securing a majority stake in the med spa franchise. Freeman Spogli invests in United States-based consumer and distribution companies. It’s invested $5.8 billion in 71 companies since its founding in 1983.
“They have around the 50 year track record in franchising and developing consumer businesses, and really had a core value alignment with the partnership team, as well as their industry advisors and quite a bit of expertise that we felt were a fantastic fit for the future vision we have for the company,” said Ryan Rao, chief development officer at Vio.
Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, but Vio’s existing management team will continue running the brand and its founders, Harish Kakarala and Joe and Nick Stanoszek, remain minority investors. Vio is stylized “V/O” and pronounced “vee-oh.”
The 50-unit franchise offers a variety of medical aesthetic services, like Botox, facials, medical weight loss solutions and dermal fillers. Vio launched in 2017 in Strongsville, Ohio, and started franchising in 2018. The brand has more than 200 units in development throughout the country.
“We have the ability to executive a little faster on our development plans, as well as bringing additional resources to the franchise system at a faster pace than we could before,” Rao said.
CEO Ryan Rose said as Vio looked to get those 200 spas to the grand opening stage a few years down the road, the executive team concluded it needed an investment.
“It became very evident that we needed a sophisticated partner, both from a financial influence and, probably even more importantly, from a strategic influence,” Rose said. “Someone that had been there and done that, can help us really achieve and pull the levers that we need in order to expedite growth.”
In mid-2022, VIO attracted a minority investment from Tucker’s Farm Corp., a goat farm and artisan cheesemaker based in Bermuda with an investment sector.
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The investment required to open a Vio spa franchise ranges from $929,952 to $1.25 million, according to its franchise disclosure document. Average unit volume for franchised locations has been fairly consistent the last three years: $1.47 million in 2023, $1.5 million in 2022 and $1.46 million in 2021.
Across the board for the 15 franchised locations included in the FDD, injectables and membership fees account for about 60 percent of sales annually.
Following Freeman Spogli’s investment, Vio’s plans are to round out the C-suite and the company’s tech stack, Rose said.
“Deepening our marketing department, creating the brand for national exposure,” he said.
Vio’s plans, Rose said, include “adding additional human infrastructure, optimizing all of the technology platforms that we’ve invested in, extracting the value from each of those platforms in order to better enhance the franchisee experience and then ultimately investing in some new technology platforms as well.”