How Create saves $250k+ annually on financial management with Velo
The venture-backed health and wellness startup confidently outsources 95% of its finance work to Velo — freeing its team to pursue initiatives that drive lasting growth.
Create is a leading health and wellness startup known for its groundbreaking innovations in creatine products. Featured in leading publications such as Well+Good and Everyday Health, Create's rise to success stems from its ethos of science-backed results and wellness through fitness.
Managing financial data in-house was a time-intensive process for Create's lean team
Like many agile, high-growth startups, Create found it challenging to handle its FP&A and accounting functions entirely in-house. The brand’s Co-founder and CEO, Dan McCormick, spent the bulk of his days manually reviewing transactions and handling exceptions in QuickBooks, leaving little time for strategic work like scenario planning and investor relations. As the brand continued to scale, its success also brought with it new financial complexities that rivaled the frustrations of being short on cash. Between manual model maintenance, updates, and actualization involving many data varieties and sources, Dan quickly found himself juggling the roles of CEO and CFO. With Create’s innovative creatine gummies poised to make a splash in the health and wellness industry, he knew it was time to make a change.Despite being a finance expert with years of experience, Dan found that most of Create's finance work could be outsourced to save him time for other growth-related initiatives. The problem? Finding a partner that was both dependable and positioned to scale with Create would be no easy task.During his search for a solution, Dan discovered Velo and knew our full-stack financial services solution was the perfect answer to Create’s dilemma.
“I was trying to do everything in-house first. But then I realized that even if I outsource finance, it can still be a core element in how we run the business — in fact, it can become even more valuable if it's done reliably.”
Velo helps Create establish a robust and investor-ready financial foundation
With Velo, Create transformed its bookkeeping, accounting, and financial modeling work from a burden into rocket fuel — a propellant that helped it achieve unexpected heights. Velo's first order of business was to organize Create's bookkeeping and accounting systems. Offloading this time-intensive work helps Dan reallocate 30 hours per month to more growth-focused initiatives. From there, Velo applied its structured financial modeling tools and bespoke processes to Create’s unique use case. Dan says that about 60% of Velo’s magic came from its strictly tested controls and procedures. The other 40% was bespoke expertise applied to Create’s slippery idiosyncrasies — the ones that used to burden the brand’s C-suite by demanding time and attention to untangle and address.With this foundational mechanism in place, Create has kept pace with the new complexities that accompany a rapidly scaling startup. The brand has gone from selling one product on one channel to 10 products across four different channels without skipping a beat.Perhaps the most exciting development has been Create's new ability to attract and transact with heavy-hitting investors, such as Unilever Ventures. Velo supported the startup through its recent series A with Unilever, providing clean, trusted financials heading into negotiations, supporting due diligence requests, and even meeting live with the lead investor. Thanks to Velo's unwavering support, Create was able to secure a $5M Series A to bring the benefits of proper creatine supplementation to a wider audience.
“There are a lot of fractional CFO services out there, and very few make you feel like you're receiving the quality of work you'll get from an executive-level employee. Velo is one of those few.”
Create works with Velo to secure a $5M Series A led by Unilever Ventures
Partnering with Velo helped Create put financial management on autopilot while garnering interest and credibility with some of the world's top investment firms.Here’s a snapshot of Create’s results since our partnership began:
As Dan looks to the future with Velo, he says he’s most excited about his fractional CFO partner’s culture, which exudes both reliability and creativity. The partnership is set to support Create’s ongoing growth and evolving financial needs.
“The quality of Velo’s services and willingness to partner on a very deep level made it an easy choice. It's incredible how quickly they've become a vital extension of our team.”
