Trash Butler, the latest venture for the College Hunks Hauling Junk founders, has taken the next step in the startup world: acquisitions.
The company, founded in 2011, has acquired Dallas-based WellKept for an undisclosed amount. WellKept is also a trash valet service and the acquisition added 20 new corporate staff, which will remain in Texas and increase their "doors under contract" from 70,000 to 130,000.
"This is my first acquisition ever; it was definitely a different experience," Nick Friedman, co-founder of Trash Butler, said. "Obviously my background is with College Hunks, which is a consumer brand and focused on organic growth. So, the integration process and underwriting, the due diligence, costs... those were new things to me."
Friedman said Florida Funders, a Tampa-based crowdsourcing investment group hybrid focused on early-stage tech companies, was a big support in helping traverse the acquisition process. In 2019, Trash Butler received Florida Funders' biggest deal at the time, both in the investment itself and the number of investors involved. A $4.1 million Series A round was raised by the company, with the help of 100 investors.
During Covid, trash volume is up
The company now has roughly 50 corporate employees in Tampa and operates in 35 states. Friedman said Trash Butler services over 130,000 doors nightly and is on track to have more than 250,000 doors contracted in the near future.
"We signed a couple major key accounts on a national basis with large multi-family management companies," Friedman said, declining to name the companies. But he said one is a Fortune 500 company.
The coronavirus pandemic has both helped and slightly strained Trash Butler itself. While Friedman said it's a positive the business is essential, with people always creating trash, that trash volume has gone up as the majority of Floridians work from home.
"We're not able to charge more with the increased volume, so it puts a bit of a strain on the margins and operations," he said. "But the business is doing well generally."
And now that the first acquisition is complete, Friedman believes there is more to come in 2021.
"We do [want to acquire more] — we're going to make a big focus in 2021 on more growth," Friedman said. "Especially after this year, there are probably business owners that got a little burnt out or hit a glass ceiling and we can help them exit or have them be part of our journey."
