Avomeen Analytical Services’ Recapitalization with High Street Capital
In an effort to foster growth and reinforce its infrastructure, Avomeen Analytical Services, a fast growing full-service independent analytical and chemical testing laboratory based in Ann Arbor, has announced a recapitalization with High Street Capital, a Chicago-based provider of flexible capital and operating expertise to middle market businesses.
The purchase of controlling interest by High Street Capital allows Avomeen, which specializes in chemical analysis, commercial product R&D, formulation innovation services, and pharmaceutical development to retain its team while receiving assistance with new relationships, capital, expertise, acquisitions, and building out its infrastructure.
Company officials say the relationship with High Street will also help Avomeen achieve its next growth plan objective of doubling its size in the next five years. “Our relationship with High Street Capital will allow Avomeen to tap into business resources not previously available to us as we prioritize strategic growth with a talented team,” says Dr. Shri Thanedar, CEO of Avomeen. “We are thrilled to work closely with High Street to expand our offerings and become a major national player in the product development, testing, and analysis space.”
• In June, Shri Thanedar, Avomeen’s CEO and founder, was named an Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst & Young for the Michigan and northwest Ohio region, and the company has been on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies in the U.S. two years in a row
• In 2015, Avomeen was ranked 673rd for its 670 percent growth rate over three years, and in 2016, the company was ranked No. 1,365 for a three-year growth rate of 281 percent. Thanedar said the company has grown revenue by 400 percent in the last four years to more than $10 million
• In 2014, Thanedar was a finalist at a Crain’s Salute to Entrepreneurs event
• With 22 Ph.D. scientists on staff, Avomeen, founded in 2010, offers a range of services related to laboratory testing and analysis in the pharmaceutical, materials, cosmetic, coatings, polymers, consumer products, health and beauty, and manufacturing industries.
“I want to take the company to the next level in the next four to five years, so it’s better to share the risks and rewards with High Street, which has an expertise in growing companies,” said Thanedar. “They will be more than just financial partners. They bring a lot of operational expertise to the table.” He said he hopes to double Avomeen’s current employment from 50 staff members to 100 while at the same time double current revenue. Twenty-two of its employees currently have Ph.Ds., Thanedar said he wants to hire an additional 10 to 15 scientists in the next four months.
“Dr. Thanedar was looking for a partner to continue Avomeen’s rapid growth through opening new labs near key customers, completing acquisitions and rounding out the company’s infrastructure. California is an area we want to expand to. Many of our clients are in California, and they’d like us to have a local presence,” he said. Rob France, a High Street Capital principal, said in a statement. “High Street Capital brings relationships, capital and expertise to help Dr. Thanedar and his team execute upon this growth plan.”
While Dr. Thanedar sold the majority control of his company one key items for him was to keep all of the company’s current employees. He accredited his company’s incredible success to their hard work and unique skillsets and wanted to insure that the transition would not break apart his team members. To reward his employee’s loyalty to the company Dr. Thanedar took 1.5 million dollars from the sale transaction of the company and distributed it among all of his employees based on their tenure with the company. With 50 employees at the company this came out to an average of 30k per employee.
Thanedar founded Avomeen in December 2010 after briefly trying retirement and finding it boring. He wanted to get back into analytical chemistry and drug development, having owned companies that did those things from 1990 to 2009. Avomeen has provided chemical testing and analysis for the pharmaceutical, cosmetic, consumer product, health and beauty and manufacturing industries. A focus is on deformulation, a type of reverse engineering that identifies ingredients in complex formulations.
Avomeen’s first client was a company that was purchasing another company and wanted to know if the formulation of one of its products was as claimed. It was. Other early customers were a law firm that needed to know if a liquid that caused a slip and fall was the same liquid an employee at a gas station used for cleaning, and a pet-supply company that wanted Dr. Thanedar to develop a nonpetroleum-based coating to protect dog paws while out walking or running on snow in the winter.
