Shortly after reaching positive ROI through paid user acquisition (UA) on Facebook, Verv Co-founder Natalia Bakhar realized the company should be reinvesting as much of its earnings as possible — as quickly as possible — to grow Weight Loss Running, Verv’s flagship app.
Verv wanted to pour more fuel on the fire, but didn’t have the available cash on hand. Unfortunately, the 30-60 day hold on payments from the App Store meant that even the money they had earned wasn’t available. As revenue piled up in the company’s App Store account, Verv was missing out on the opportunity to capitalize on successful marketing campaigns.
Knowing that her team didn’t want to raise equity, Natalia tried applying for financing from banks and online lenders – but they simply did not understand the business. Verv was stuck in a waiting game, unable to fund new initiatives to accelerate their growth.
One of the biggest challenges of running an app business is the app store payment policies. They can really cripple the growth of high-potential apps.
Verv took a twofold approach to funding mobile growth. Using Braavo Accelerate to unlock trapped App Store revenue and Braavo Extend to triple user acquisition spend, Verv was able to continuously invest in growth and double down on profitable marketing channels.
Rather than waiting 60 days to get its money, Verv now had access to new earnings from the App Store on a weekly basis. As revenue grew each week, the team immediately had more resources to iterate, optimize, and grow. By quickly reinvesting the company’s earnings, Verv was able to conduct thousands of marketing experiments on Facebook and Instagram and gain valuable insight into building out a more robust marketing strategy.
While Natalia and her team optimized performance, Braavo’s risk and revenue forecasting algorithms analyzed metrics across Verv’s app store, analytics, and advertising platforms to understand exactly how much capital the company needed to drive new growth.
After months of exceptional performance, Natalia had the confidence — and the data — to take on additional capital and invest more heavily in proven strategies. When the time came to increase spend for Running for Weight Loss, Braavo Extend provided upfront funding to triple Verv’s user acquisition budget.
In Verv’s first four months with Braavo, their revenue quadrupled, demonstrating the compounding effect of weekly revenue acceleration. Over the next year, the company’s non-linear revenue growth continued.
In 14 months, Verv achieved 50x revenue growth — without giving away any equity.
In addition to an increased UA budget, Verv was able to invest in new creative assets and experiment with new advertising channels. The accelerated cash flow stimulated growth across the organization, from product development to strategic marketing partnerships. They were also able launch two additional apps: Walking for Weight Loss and Fitness for Weight Loss – which have also soared up the charts.
Pairing Braavo Accelerate with Braavo Extend helped Running for Weight Loss reach new heights.
In a little over a year, we grew revenue 50x and became a Top-100 grossing app in the US app store. We couldn’t have done it without Braavo.
