Eco-Conscious Oral Care Brand Plus Ultra’s Post-Acquisition Surge

In 2019, Plus Ultra founder Christina Ramirez was trying to secure seed funding to bankroll her sustainable oral care brand’s expansion beyond Whole Foods, where she incubated the concept for it six years earlier while working at the Venice location for roughly minimum wage. 

She never closed the round, but the story has a happy ending. The fundraising process was cut short by TZP Group, a private equity fund focused on consumer goods and services, acquiring Plus Ultra about a year ago. “It’s not a normal thing to go from raising a round to an acqui-hire from a private equity firm, but I think they saw the innovations that I created, they saw that me and my team were strong, and they wanted to have us not only fuel our brand, but also a couple other initiatives that they had internally,” says Ramirez. “Here we are married a year into our relationship, and it’s been incredible.”

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Plus Ultra founder Christina Ramirez

Incredible, indeed. What started as Ramirez’s side hustle with 500 units of Plus Ultra’s biodegradable bamboo toothbrushes, which sold out in a week, has turned into a $5 million business with more than a million customers, per a Forbes The Next 1,000 listing. Today, Plus Ultra’s stylish yet affordable—all its products are $30 or less—oral and personal care is available in over 8,000 points of sale nationwide at a wide-ranging group of retailers, including Food Lion, CVS, Thrive Market and Shen Beauty.

The brand will debut soon at Nordstrom as part of the department store’s Parachute Home pop-up. In April, it unveiled a partnership with Patterson Dental, the largest distribution company providing dental products to private practices in the United States. Food Lion has been a huge success for Plus Ultra. Ramirez shares the Southern grocery chain purchased 60% of its inventory for the year in the first 45 days product was on shelves. 

According to TZP, Plus Ultra’s biodegradable bamboo toothbrushes have prevented over 1.5 million pounds of plastic waste from streaming into U.S. landfills and oceans. Before Plus Ultra was backed by TZP, Ramirez bootstrapped the brand however she could. She had to get creative to seize upon early opportunities to scale, one of them being at Whole Foods, where Plus Ultra scored national distribution. 

“Once the buyers were like, ‘We’ll put you in store,’ I cashed out my $3,000 401k that I had from Whole Foods, flew to China, figured out manufacturing, bought product, flew back with it in my luggage, smuggled it through the Chicago airport and then launched the company,” says Ramirez. “It was the most organic, small potatoes company you can think of.” She left her position at Whole Foods to work full-time on Plus Ultra in 2016.

Retail was hard at Plus Ultra’s nascent stage. “Very hard. A lot of out of stocks, a lot of me talking to Whole Foods saying, “I’m once again asking for your patience here, thank you for your support,’” recounts Ramirez. The Amazon-owned grocer supported the budding entrepreneur by affording her patience. Ramirez says, “They were wonderful in that aspect. Our units grew from a couple hundred to a couple thousand to 10 thousand to hundreds of thousands and then expanding to multiple products and innovations. I’m so grateful to be where we are today underneath a private equity umbrella.”

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Plus Ultra’s stylish yet affordable oral and personal care is available in over 8,000 points of sale nationwide at a wide-ranging group of retailers, including Food Lion, CVS, Thrive Market and Shen Beauty.

With the power of TZP’s deep pockets behind it, Plus Ultra has been pursuing its expansion without worrying about fundraising, an especially uphill climb for a Hispanic woman. Ramirez says, “We grew so much last year because my energy was focused on the business instead of on trying to have conversations with VCs and angels.” 

This year, a major objective for Plus Ultra is building its private-label business. Ramirez figures the business will ultimately account for 30% of the brand’s sales. It’s currently in talks with CVS and Kroger to produce private-label products for the chains. “The best thing about working with private label is it gets your foot in the door with the retailer, and then the buyers on the brand side say, ‘Hey, I want to work with you as well. What are your other innovations?’ It’s a strategic move,” she says. “We’re always going to be brand-side heavy.”