Insight
Consumer Products· Industrial Technology & Manufacturing· M&A Business Services
Share this Insight
About the Company
Edge Right is a direct-to-consumer provider of premium steel landscape edging and adjacent outdoor living products. The company uses in-house metalworking, laser cutting, and robotics, including robot arms, to fabricate its outdoor products, which include landscape edging, planters, tree rings, raised beds, fire pits, and signage.
About the Founders
Roger Lewis and Daniel Mullaly represent the next-generation of vertically integrated, ground-up consumer brand development. Edge Right’s AI tech-driven business model creates products entirely in-house, builds the brand using social media, and sells and communicates directly with target audiences.
Customer Base
Edge Right serves homeowners, landscapers, and outdoor living lifestyle customers through its e-commerce platform, Amazon, and differentiated product portfolio.
Company Origin Story
- COR-TEN Steel for aesthetics and durability.
- Precision Engineering for simple, yet highly effective, installation.
- Historic Berry, AL, for building a modern hub of innovation and craftsmanship.
“Our role was to help buyers understand the quality of the company’s growth and the broader strategic value of the engine the team built.”
Chris Parisi, Partner and Head of M&A at CMA, recognized the full extent of what the niche, founder-owned Edge Right was offering the lawn, garden, and outdoor living market. Thanks to highly automated in-house manufacturing capabilities and a proven digital marketing engine, Edge Right was uniquely positioned to attract strategic interest in the consumer products market as a leading direct-to-consumer (DTC) provider. All stakeholders benefited from the transaction. The acquisition expanded the buyer’s product offering, and our client Edge Right gained a strong strategic partner to support its next phase of growth.
Quantifiable Outcomes for Stakeholders
Roger Lewis, Founder, and Daniel Mullaly, President, built the successful business that combines a differentiated product, passionate customer base, and AI-enabled tools.
As exclusive financial advisor, CMA worked closely with the Edge Right team to develop and then position the company’s growth story for peak valuation, manage a detailed diligence process, and identify the right strategic partner for the business. Ultimately, we completed the transaction in less than seven months from signed contract and three months from launch.
CMA led a highly competitive sale process with more than 100 signed NDAs, six management presentations, and two rounds of bidding, resulting in a valuation in excess of the owners’ initial expectations. The winning bid was from Super-Sod, headquartered in Charleston, South Carolina, a portfolio company of Kainos Capital, and a leading provider of turfgrass, sod, and lawn care products across the Southeast.
“The deal structure reflected the buyers’ desire to partner with management and the sellers’ desire to share in the next chapter of the business.”
– Chris Parisi, Partner, Head of M&A at CMA
The transaction provided significant liquidity to Lewis while allowing both Lewis and Mullaly to participate in the future growth of the combined business through rollover equity. Roger will retain an ongoing economic interest, while Mullaly is expected to remain in an operating leadership role.
Core Elements of Edge Right’s Growth Story
CMA positioned Edge Right as much more than a landscape edging manufacturer. We described the company as a modern outdoor living products business with a distinctive brand, proprietary products, direct customer relationships, and scalable manufacturing infrastructure. We emphasized––and provided corresponding data as proof––the multiple avenues for continued product and channel expansion.
Our growth story focused on at least four key aspects of Edge Right’s success, both past and potential.
1. Market Shift
Edge Right built a differentiated brand in a category historically served by commodity products. Our client was (and continues to be) highly responsive to evolving industry trends toward a younger consumer demographic that rewards value-add positioning over anonymous shelf-stock.
2. Unique Edge
Lewis and Mullaly’s ingenuity and progressive mindset are evident from their company’s founding to today. They developed an AI tech-driven business model capable of creating products entirely in-house, building the brand using social media, and selling and communicating directly with their target audience.
3. Operational Efficiency
Edge Right distinguished itself in the market through scalable manufacturing and fulfillment capabilities. Industrial robots and automated fabrication equipment were just one part of the growth equation. CMA emphasized the combination of brand, product differentiation, domestic manufacturing, and marketing efficiency. Together, these factors constituted a stellar record for waste reduction, resource optimization, fast delivery, and high quality.
4. Buyer Fit
CMA positioned Edge Right as a very attractive add-on acquisition for a buyer in the lawn, garden, and outdoor living market that primarily sells wholesale and retail. We also wove our client’s financial profile into the growth story, specifically, the combination of strong revenue growth and EBITDA margins above 30%, which is unusual for a growing DTC business with in-house manufacturing. Buyer fit became about synergistic potential, as Edge Right offered Super-Sod both complementary products and complementary operations.
“CMA did an excellent job helping us navigate the process and finding the right home for Edge Right. Their team understood our business, our products, and what made our company special.”
– Roger Lewis, founder of Edge Right
Overcoming Challenges to Demonstrate Scalability
During the course of M&A due diligence and ultimately the sale to Super-Sod, we successfully navigated multiple challenges, including cash-basis financials, rapid EBITDA growth, DTC market perception, and steel cost volatility.
CMA sustained a well-conceived, methodical approach throughout the dynamic transaction. Like many good transactions, this one required a lot of work behind the scenes.
The buyer and its advisors spent significant time getting comfortable with the company’s rapid growth, seasonality, working capital needs, marketing efficiency, and ability to scale beyond its core edging product. In response, our due diligence crossed financial, legal, operational, working capital, and rollover equity matters. We handled a long list of requests with patience, precision, and a steady hand, particularly during the final push to closing.
Edge Right’s Growth Story
1.
Value of entrepreneur-led businesses
2.
From “niche” to attractive asset
3.
Best-fit outside the usual sector-fit
4.
Competitive without broadening market
5.
Alignment of diverse strategic interests
6.
Agile approach (to sustain momentum)
“I am excited to continue leading Edge Right through this next phase of growth. Super-Sod is the right partner for the business, and I am grateful to Roger, our team, and CMA for helping us reach this important milestone.”
– Daniel Mullaly, President of Edge Right
Securities transactions and services are provided through Carl Marks Securities LLC, a member of FINRA and SIPC, an affiliated entity.
Closing Thought: Importance of Buyer Selection
Super-Sod emerged as the preferred buyer because of its strategic fit, credibility, and ability to support Edge Right’s next phase of growth.
Three Key Takeaways
CMA emphasized that Edge Right is not a traditional building products company, nor is the business a typical consumer products business or a simple e-commerce brand. We described how Edge Right intersects all three business models.
First, CMA’s growth story revolved around a compelling, interdependent strategic rationale. The combined platform has opportunities across DTC, landscaping, commercial, and adjacent product channels. Furthermore, Mullaly’s continued leadership provides continuity after closing.
Second, the transaction outcome was particularly notable because CMA was able to drive a highly attractive result for a niche, founder-owned business by clearly articulating the company’s growth story, competitive position, and strategic value.
Third, the deal was much more than just a financial transaction, because it provided a logical home for our client’s business.
Tell the Client’s Whole Story
We positioned Edge Right as a means to broaden Super-Sod’s geographic footprint. However, our client’s growth story is about a much broader opportunity inherent to its distinct business model. Edge Right is more than a single-product company. For Super-Sod, the acquisition is the chance to build a premium outdoor living products platform through a direct digital channel. It expands the company’s lawn care offerings into complementary products and extends its customer base to serve a broader range of landscaping needs.
Related Articles
Business ServicesIndustrial Technology & Manufacturing
- Investment Banking
Sell-Side
- In the News
Carl Marks Securities Wins M&A Advisor Award for Utilities Deal of the Year
Industrial Technology & Manufacturing
- Investment Banking
Sell-Side
- Insight
How Specialty Manufacturers Are Staying Competitive With AI
Business ServicesIndustrial Technology & Manufacturing
- Investment Banking
Sell-Side
- In the News