When Chad Janis had the idea to sell gummy-bear-shaped nutritional supplements four years ago, he had to convince manufacturers it could be done and retailers that customers would prefer his green gummies.

He didn’t know how right he was.

His brand, Grüns (from the German word for greens) now ships around 10 million gummies every day, and this week, London-based conglomerate Unilever announced it was acquiring Grüns for an estimated $1.2 billion.

The 33-year-old former private equity investor has now cemented his place in the consumer packaged goods industry as a founder who has secured one of the sector’s best—and quickest—exits in the past decade. The Beaverton, Oregon-based Grüns currently has some one million customers and its superfood gummy bear is the top-selling green supplement on Amazon and across retailers nationwide.

“We didn’t build it to sell it. But we want to make an impact on millions of people’s lives,” Janis tells Forbes. “We think [Unilever has] a track record of brands that have success and they help them have more impact. They’ve done it multiple times before with peers we look up to.”

Forbes estimates Unilever is paying an implied multiple of 4 times estimated trailing revenue, which is among the highest deal multiple of any consumer packaged good transaction in the past year.

Janis retained, Forbes estimates, about 50% ownership in the business, after raising an estimated $45 million from outside investors, meaning his stake could be worth at least $450 million after taxes. Janis declined to comment on the deal’s financials.

Unilever, which reported nearly $60 billion in 2025 revenue from products like Dove soap, supplement brand Nutrafol and hydration brand Liquid I.V. is doubling down on wellness and personal care. Last month, Unilever announced it was combining its entire food division—including Hellman’s mayonnaise and Knorr —to McCormick in a deal valued at $45 billion.

The exact terms of the Unilever-Grüns deal weren’t disclosed, but in October 2025 the company announced that it had hit an annualized run rate of over $300 million, after raising a $35 million series B in March 2025 that valued the business at $500 million.

The eye-popping exit comes less than three years since Janis started selling his supplements. That’s a rarity, says Drew Fallon, who runs Iris Finance, the Chicago-based AI platform for packaged goods grands: “If you’re Unilever and you’re going to spend a billion dollars, you want to be very confident it’s not a fad. Most exits are after 11 years. You get higher multiples when you’re around longer, so this is very much bucking the trend.”

Janis grew up in Dallas and was entrepreneurial from a young age. Starting at 11 years old he taught private swimming lessons, which helped pay for college at Brigham Young University, where he earned a degree in finance. Janis then briefly founded a startup that helped aggregate loyalty reward points for free flights and grew his YouTube channel to 25,000 subscribers before becoming an investor at Summit Partners, the $44 billion (assets under management) private equity firm based in Boston.

At Summit, Janis led 10 deals totaling $1.4 billion, and joined the boards of some of those investments, including for Solo Stove. He also became a board observer at bedding brand Brooklinen and men’s grooming brand Dr. Squatch (which went was acquired by Unilever for $1.5 billion in 2025). Janis says he spoke with 300 businesses during his investing stint.

“It was a special opportunity for me to learn,” he recalls.

Janis left Summit after three years in 2022 to attend Stanford Business School—and just before moving to California he came up with the idea for Grüns. Two days into drinking a new morning supplement powder, he couldn’t stand the chalky taste and decided there had to be a better way to fill the nutritional gap.

“This isn’t fun,” he recalls thinking, “and I’m not going to keep this habit.”

Then Janis learned that 90% of Americans face the same gaps in minerals, including Vitamin D and Vitamin E, and he started developing his first nutritional gummies. While at Stanford, he took a year to perfect the recipe, find a contract manufacturer and prepare the business to launch. Grün’s first gummy launched in August 2023 with minerals from some 30 organic fruits and vegetables as well as 21 vitamins and 6 grams of prebiotic fiber. Says Janis, “We had to overcome the entire market’s perception of what a gummy could be.”

He had already invested much of the money he earned at Summit in other businesses, and he didn’t have many family and friends who could invest early on, either.

But many of his Stanford classmates did, and he ended up raising around $400,000 while in school. “They gave me more money than they should have,” says Janis. “It worked out for them.”

By the time he got his MBA in 2024, Grüns had $50 million in revenue.

And at the end of 2024, Grüns launched in its first retailer, Sprouts, which picked up Grüns’ low-sugar and no-sugar lines. Then Grüns expanded to a line for kids called Grüns Cubs, and Sprouts carried that line as well.

Revenue doubled the next year, reaching $100 million in 2025, as Grüns pushed into big box retailers like Target, Walmart and Sam’s Club. By the end of the year, Grüns was being sold in more than 6,000 locations nationwide.

Grüns has added another 1,000 locations since, and, once the business officially joins Unilever, he’ll stay on. Janis says he is looking forward to Unilever’s expertise in product development, the marketing it takes to reach $1 billion in annual sales, and help in expanding internationally.

“I’m not done here. I’ve got a lot I want to do with this business,” says Janis. “We are in a marathon and we are in mile 4. It’s very early and we are just hitting that runner’s high.”

© Forbes