Aquavoss: From Acquisition Due Diligence to a Finance Function Built for Scale
How a high-conviction acquirer validated the financials, closed the deal with confidence, and had a full financial infrastructure running in under two weeks
The Client
Aquavoss is a high-ticket e-commerce brand selling premium hot tubs and cold plunge tubs directly to consumers. The business operates a lean, employee-light model with a global supply chain spanning component sourcing and final assembly across China and the United States. Adam Vojdany and his partner Gabe Flateman, co-founder of Casper Mattress, acquired Aquavoss's assets and IP from the original founders, bringing a clear thesis: a differentiated, capital-efficient product with loyal customers and significant room to scale.
The Challenge
When Adam and Gabe entered late-stage acquisition talks, they found themselves facing a financial picture that was promising on the surface but hard to trust. The sellers were not financially sophisticated, and the QuickBooks records they provided showed margins and cash flow efficiency that seemed almost too good for a business carrying meaningful inventory. Cost of goods sold in particular appeared to be tracked inconsistently, and there was no clear way to reconcile the P&L against actual cash movements.
For Adam and Gabe, this wasn't a reason to walk away. It was a reason to get rigorous. Before committing to the deal, they needed an independent team that could act as a financial detective: tracing every transaction, validating the seller's story, and either confirming the numbers or surfacing what was wrong. With a significant asset purchase on the line and a compressed timeline, they brought in South Bouquet Advisory to perform a Quality of Earnings analysis.
The challenge didn't end at closing. Aquavoss's existing financial infrastructure carried the complexity of the seller's era: ad hoc systems, informal records, and a global supply chain with payment deadlines that couldn't slip. Adam's immediate post-close priorities included overhauling inventory compliance, evaluating the supply chain, and rebuilding the entire tech stack. There was no bandwidth to also stand up a finance function from scratch. He needed it done fast, and done right.
The Solution
South Bouquet's Quality of Earnings process was thorough and fast. The team went line by line through the P&L and cash flow statements, tracing transactions and reconciling the numbers against what the sellers were claiming. With a deal of this complexity and a timeline that didn't allow for a leisurely review, Adam needed a team that could go deep quickly and come back with a complete picture. South Bouquet did exactly that, giving Adam and Gabe the full financial clarity they needed to head into final negotiations with confidence in every number on the table.
Post-close, South Bouquet moved immediately into building Aquavoss's financial infrastructure from the ground up. Within two weeks, the full finance stack was operational: QuickBooks configured, Ramp and Mercury set up, and payroll running through Justworks. The systems were built to be employee-light and low-maintenance by design, consistent with how Adam and Gabe intended to run the business. South Bouquet became the ongoing finance function, not a one-time setup team.
South Bouquet also took the time to understand Aquavoss's global supply chain at a level of detail that most finance teams never reach. Manufacturing partners in China and the US operate on payment timelines with very little room for error. A missed payment can stall an entire production cycle. South Bouquet internalized this and managed payment timing proactively, treating the supply chain as the operational constraint it actually was.
The Results
More Than a Finance Function
What Adam values most about working with South Bouquet isn't just the speed or the systems. It's that they think like operators. They understand that Aquavoss is a business with real constraints, real deadlines, and real consequences when things slip. They don't wait to be asked. They review the monthly financials proactively, flag discrepancies without prompting, and come to every conversation already knowing what matters.
For a lean, employee-light business like Aquavoss, that posture is everything. Adam and Gabe didn't acquire Aquavoss to spend their time managing a finance function. They acquired it to build something. South Bouquet makes that possible by running finance the way a great in-house hire would, without the overhead, the ramp time, or the single point of failure.
The Aquavoss engagement illustrates something South Bouquet brings to every deal-driven situation: the ability to operate across the full financial stack at once. The same team that performed the Quality of Earnings built the post-close infrastructure and now manages the ongoing finance function. There was no handoff, no knowledge loss, no learning curve. Just continuity from due diligence through Day 1 and beyond.
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