The model contains a dynamic scenario toggle across cases; with 57 personal care and suncare comps for valuation comparisons.

The Multiple spectrum tab shows the array of outcomes & has a KNN applied to show where vacation currently sits relative to the comp set.

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Now - as a former sunscreen salesman myself (one of mad rabbits top products), this caught my eye. A thicc VMG check followed by the instillation of a CEO who most recently led Not Your Mothers, which literally just sold for almost a billion dollars - its very suspect that he would immediately jump back into the hopper. For context, market equity grant for a CEO of PE company was 2.6% in 2025. Nelson became CEO of NYM in 2020, and if I was a gambling man Id say it was more than the 2.6%. Which means on exit of NYM (~$800m) he would have made a lot of money.

Whats going on here? Like jesus christ man why arent you on vacation or taking a breather for at least a little bit?

So i did some digging. And I think we might have the next ~billion personal care brand on our hands here..so

Let’s underwrite Vacation

About the brand

Vacation was founded in 2021 by Marty Bell, Dakota Green, and Lach Hall. The idea was born out of Bell & Halls popular itnernet radio ‘poolside FM’ - which was built on an escapist 80s nostalgia lifestyle . They were working together during COVID in the dominican and realized they could bring this brand identity into the sunscreen category as culture-led brand. Dakota Green was an experienced brand operator who helped them bring it to life.

The bit extends beyond the packaging our website - this is green’s linkedin profile:

Revenue Growth

Vacation started in 2021 and grew very rapidly, reaching about 70m or so in 2025 sales, which was almost doubling YoY (numbers not confirmed but theres enough reporting to put this together)

In the article where Nelson Miranda accepted the job as CEO of vacation, he said the company was still growing' ‘very fast.’

To me, that means its not an acceleration over the near 100% growth, but im taking that as still well in excess of 30% YoY - lets just call it 50% for fun. That would mean that Vacation reaches the 9 figure mark for FY26.

We are a little desensitized to $100m in sales these days, but this is an important milestone in the suncare category.

Copptertone was the biggest exit in category history at $213m in sales when it sold for $550m to Beiersdorf.

The category is only $2.7B in the US, so hitting the 9 figure mark is a very big deal. The last independent company to do this was supergoop, and it took them 13 years which resulted in a $750m blackstone acquisition

Before super goop you have to go back 2 DECADES in 1969 to daytona beach when Ron Rice founded the brand in 1969 with a $500 loan from his father. Adjusted for inflation, the brand crossed $100m in todays dollars after 10 years when it hit $20m nominal (crazy right). it crossed the real 100m mark in 2006, 37 years later

Vacation is BY FAR the fastest company to get to 9 figures in sales in this category…..ok Nelson, now I get it a little more..i see u..

The underwriting case

Ok so now that we’ve established that this brand is fairly unique from a growth perspective, the question becomes: how big can it get?

It was reported in december 2025 that vacation hired Raymond James to run a process. By the end of march, VMG had announced the investment. 90 days basically start to finish, pretty good - tells me it went relatively quick.

VMG invested $70m mostly in secondary at a $210m valuation, gobbling about a third of the business - and thats a pretty big check, even for VMG, most definitely a hammer.

Note: VMG owned Sunbum before it was acquired by SC Johnson for 5.7x sales / $400m EV in 2019.

So what’s the play here?

Well, I think its extremely possible that this becomes the largest suncare acquisition of all time.

What has to happen for that to be the case?

Flip the toggle on the scenario toggle model with me to ‘bull case’

Here is how we are modeling vacation revenue growth over a hold period of 4 year for VMG, ultimately in this scenario vacation is going well beyond suncare and can turn into a real platform play across all things sun, so to say - which I think is possible with the strength of this brand. the brand reaches $400m in sales by 2030 here

Now, at the median exit multiple in suncare, 3.7x sales, that would impute a $1.6B enterprise value, or a 2.8x MOIC // 55.3% IRR for VMG turning their $70m check into ~$400m

Honestly, not that crazy. Very sequential declines in growth modeled, no accelerations.

The risk / reward

Ok so we have established there is alot of upside here. But in my opinion, the genius of this investment is tht the downside is really quite limtied as well, because vacation has already basically crossed this critical scale mark of $100m for the category.

Even in a scenario where Vacation goes to negative growth by 2030, with the right fwd model and story, I dont see a super practical situation where the brand exits even at that point for less than this $210m. Here is the broader personal care LTM exit revenue mutliples plotted against scale with a nearest neighbors band applied

My conclusion

Nelson Miranda said the opportunity ‘was too good to pass up.’ I think he is probably right. This is one of the most exciting brands from a capital markets perspective in a long time. It is a rough, brutal category and it will be very difficult but the risk reward of Vacation is highly favorable. The upside is in the potentially multi-billions.

Everyone has loved this brand for a long time; but I think its economic potential has gone drastically underappreciated.

Don’t worry I did.

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1. New Customers

2. Returning Customers

The questions every financial model should answer:

• How many customers do I need to acquire to hit my goals?

• What am I willing to pay for those customers?

• How many customers do I think will come bacK?

everything else falls into place.

So - my model answers this for im8 as the following:

Over the next 3 years, IM8 needs to acquire 1.2m customers at a maximum CAC of $435 and generate $560m in repeat revenue over that time frame in order to generate positive EBITDA margins, model below

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