C.A. Fortune acquires Minneapolis company
C.A. Fortune, a privately held sales and marketing agency headquartered in Elk Grove Village, is acquiring Build, a national consumer products brand incubator, based in Minneapolis.
Tyler Lowell, managing partner of C.A. Fortune, said the timing of identifying emergent brands in the natural sector is ideal as industry experts expect record growth in 2018.
"Our latest transaction with Build represents the continuation of our vision in building out the nation's leading consumer products service firm, with direct focus on lifestyle/better-for-you offerings," Lowell said. "Following the completion and full integration of our national sales agency last year, adding Build's capabilities to the C.A. Fortune family of companies enables us to have a dedicated team solely focused on identifying emerging brands in the industry - and ultimately providing a turnkey solution for our clients, from brand incubation, client development, sales management, marketing and insights, retail services and more."
Effective Feb. 1, Build will continue to operate independently, wholly owned by C.A. Fortune. Ali Shouman launched Build in 2012, along with his brother and business partner Hassan Shouman, and will continue to run the new business unit, with a vision of offering emerging brands a unique suite of services they struggled receiving from other competitors.
"At Build, we help solve some of the pitfalls in building a business. We play a value-add leadership role in assisting clients to scale to the next level toward a variety of long-term goals - whether it's to attract investors, expand product offerings or simply to move product off shelf by aligning our clients with the top sales agency in the country," Shouman said. "Joining the C.A. Fortune team now enables us to provide a turnkey deliverable for our current and future clients. The privately held culture C.A. Fortune embodies - and ultimately what is portrayed in the service they provide their client partners, was the most compelling aspect of why we made the move."
Founded in 1983, C.A. Fortune has more than 365 employees nationwide with regional offices in Cincinnati, New York City metro, Dallas, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Denver and Portland.