In the process of searching for flexible debt financing solutions, Splash Wines came across Aion after discussing their needs and carefully evaluating their finances.
Rob Imeson is the Founder and CEO of Splash Wines. Splash Wines is a direct-to-consumer wine company that provides great wine at affordable prices, and delivers it directly to your door.
Splash Wines was founded in 2014 as a family-run business with generations of history in the wine industry.
“As the business grew, we started seeing opportunities to accelerate our growth.”
Splash had large orders coming in and wanted to buy inventory in larger quantities. The Splash team was growing, too. An expanding customer base introduced a new need for additional team members.
We needed to meet the increased demand and take advantage of new growth opportunities.
Splash’s founders knew they didn’t want to give up equity in the business or use a short-term solution.
“We were growing too quickly and our capital needs would continue to evolve in the coming months. We needed a financing partner that was going to help with our immediate need for cash, but also grow with us.”
In the process of searching for flexible debt financing solutions, Splash Wines came across Aion. After discussing their needs and carefully evaluating their finances, Aion provided a tailored proposal. Based on Splash’s revenue, growth, projections, and goals, Aion determined that a revolving line of credit was the best option for their situation.
Aion’s asset-based lending can be backed by inventory, invoices, or a combination of the two. This worked out well for Splash because, as a direct-to-consumer business, traditional invoice financing wouldn’t have provided the funds they needed at a cost that made sense.
We decided to move forward with Aion because the cost of funds was competitive and the team was invested in our story and goals as much as the numbers.
Splash started out with a small line of about $300,000. This provided the funds they needed to cover cash flow gaps and run the business efficiently.
“From the people to the platform, our onboarding experience with Aion was seamless. The team was transparent about the requirements and their technology was intuitive and easy to use.”
“Partnering with Aion has paid off tremendously for Splash. In addition to covering cash flow gaps and fueling our growth, Aion has been extremely flexible as our business needs have changed.”
When the pandemic hit, Splash Wines experienced unexpected explosive growth.
“Our revenue tripled in just a few months and we quickly outgrew our current line of credit. Aion was quick to respond and increase our credit limit.”
When Splash had an unanticipated opportunity to purchase a significant amount of inventory at a much reduced price, they were already near their credit limit with Aion.
“We reached out to the Aion team and explained what we were trying to accomplish. They arranged for a short-term line in addition to our current line to ensure we were able to take advantage of this opportunity. “
When we started with Aion we had less than $1M in sales. Today, we’ve grown to over $30M in sales. And our initial $300K line has grown up to $4M.
“Aion’s flexible financing solutions have been a key factor in Splash Wines achieving our remarkable growth. Across our business needs – both expected and unanticipated, – Aion has provided a financing solution we can recommend without reservation.”
