It’s not every day that a bank approaches an entrepreneur and offers to raise more than $400 million in debt to help them control nearly all outside investment in the business, but that’s what happened in August 2025 when 10 Capital One bankers sat down with MaryRuth Ghiyam, the founder of MaryRuth’s, an organic supplements company based in Los Angeles.

“They really went to bat for me,” says Ghiyam, 41, who is co-CEO of the company. (The other co-CEO is Jonathan Klein, who assumed the title in April 2025 after serving as chief legal officer for the prior five years.)

Ghiyam was no stranger to Capital One. After she founded the business in 2014, Ghiyam covered early expenses by racking up thousands of dollars on her Capital One Spark card. Ghiyam says the business, which sells liquid vitamins, gummies and other supplements in more than 300 different forms, has been profitable since day one. MaryRuth’s is now an estimated $600 million (trailing 12-month revenue) business with an estimated EBITDA profit of $125 million, or margins of about 20%. Even after accounting for the $420 million in debt Capital One raised for the business (putting in a large chunk itself), Forbes estimates that the company is worth at least $1.5 billion.

“My face is on the bottle. Most consumers think that I'm an avatar or a cartoon, which I like. I use that when we raise money,” says Ghiyam. “I always say, ‘The brand is never about me.’ They don't even know I exist.”

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The Capital One deal, which closed in October 2025 and sets the loan due date in 2030, helped the former holistic health coach maintain roughly 97% ownership for herself and her family.

That structure would have made Ghiyam a new billionaire worth an estimated $1.5 billion, but two years ago, after she and her husband, David Ghiyam, split up, she signed a post-nuptial agreement that entitled him to half of any MaryRuth’s sale, while she is also entitled to half the proceeds if he ever sells his AI-enabled spiritual coaching business called David AI. (Ghiyam, who started MaryRuth’s before she got married, gave her mother, Colleen, the business’s original chief financial officer, an ownership stake early on and she still has some shares, which Forbes includes in its estimate of Ghiyam’s total shares.) Forbes estimates that Ghiyam is worth some $750 million.

Strong profitability has made MaryRuth’s an acquisition target over the years, and, long before Capital One called, Ghiyam turned down nine-figure offers from food conglomerates, including institutions such as Blackstone.

“If you have profit,” she says, “you have free will.”

It hasn’t always been easy financially for Ghiyam. When she started MaryRuth’s, she was on the hook for $700,000 of her mother’s personal........

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