M&A Science
CPG Due Diligence: The Operator Framework Behind a $1B Exit | Keith Levy Part 1
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Keith Levy, Operating Partner at Sonoma Brands Capital
Keith Levy won't open the P&L until the founder passes. "If that one doesn't pass the sniff test, you don't even get to the product, the margin structure, the P&L, none of it."
Keith is an Operating Partner at Sonoma Brands Capital and spent years buying companies for Mars Wrigley. He walks Kison through his five-pillar diligence sequence: founder, product-market fit, go-to-market, how the product is made, and financials last. A deal can fall apart at any one of those steps.
He covers how a founder's candor about risk tells you whether to trust the numbers, what Touchland and Bachan's got right on product-market fit, and why he now asks what a brand owns instead of defaulting to asset-light co-manufacturing.
Five pillars means five places for a deal-breaking finding to get lost. In DealRoom Diligence, each request carries an assignee, status, and due date, and each finding logs the risk, its owner, and a mitigation plan, linked to the data behind it. See how it works: click here.