2023-10-05 09:58:28
In 2016, Alex Seibel visited a Whole Foods store in the United States and was shocked by the number of different brands of sustainable cleaning products.
“There was a whole shelf of just that. There were regarding 30 brands, whereas in Brazil there were only two,” he told Brazil Journal.
The entrepreneur saw an opportunity to fill this void and founded Positiva, the first green cleaning product startup in Brazil.
Since then, the company has launched more than 60 SKUs, ranging from a vegetable loofah — the flagship product in volume — to a liquid laundry detergent, deodorant, shampoo bar and toothpaste.
The startup has more than 80 thousand customers registered in its ecommerce, and is present in large retailers such as São Paulo and Pacheco drugstores and Mambo and St. Marché supermarkets.
Positiva had revenues of R$ 15.9 million last year, and the projection is top line similar this year, of R$16.2 million. From now on, the startup expects a brutal acceleration, earning R$44 million in 2026.Now, to expand its manufacturing capacity and its sales and marketing team, the startup is raising a round of crowdfunding.
The goal is to raise R$9 million at a valuation of R$45 million (pre-money) through the Kria platform.
Positiva will use resources on three fronts: expanding its factory and investing in R&D to develop new formulation and packaging technologies; increase brand awareness; and working capital.
The investment in the factory, acquired last year, is one of Positiva’s efforts to stop being a niche business — which is largely due to the price. Due to the lack of scale and raw materials, their products are substantially more expensive than traditional cleaning products.
“We did a lot of research with our consumers, as well as independent research, and we saw that there is a willingness to pay a ‘green premium’, but there is a ceiling on this,” said Leandro Menezes, the CEO of Positiva.
According to Leandro, this ceiling is up to 30% of the price of the conventional product.
The Positiva factory – purchased to reduce manufacturing costs – is already responsible for producing 51% of the products sold by the company, and the goal is to bring this number to 80% in the next two years.
“Some products will continue to be made with third parties. But products with greater recurrence, volume and margin we want to produce all in-house,” said Seibel.
Positiva has already invested R$8 million in the factory, which, according to the company, might double its gross margin.
In some product lines that began to be produced in-house, this has already started to happen. The gross margin on bar soaps, for example, went from 40% to 47% following the factory, with sales volume increasing by 250%. Deodorant followed the same dynamics: gross margin jumped from 40% to 64.5% and volume grew 44%.
In Brazil, Positiva was the pioneer in this market, but it is no longer the only one.
The startup currently competes with brands such as Yvy, which sells cleaning products made with natural ingredients in capsule format; and with BOB, which makes sustainable personal care products such as shampoo and conditioner bars.
Pedro Arbex
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