Company Overview
Forever, Inc. is the world’s first and only permanent online media storage and sharing service. Forever provides moms and other family members with a complete memory keeping solution, enabling them to collect, curate and celebrate their memories today, tomorrow and for generations.
Consumers collect their memories by using Forever mobile, desktop, and web apps to automatically upload photos and documents to their Forever accounts. Consumers also FedEx old photos, films, and videos to Forever where they are digitized and saved at Forever.com. Consumers curate their content by editing, organizing, and adding digital art to albums within their own “permanent digital homes” at Forever. Finally, consumers celebrate by printing their memories in photobooks, calendars, canvases, etc. and by sharing online with friends and family.
And permanent members of Forever are also sharing with future generations because most of the money they pay for permanent guaranteed storage is deposited into a long-term restricted fund called the Forever™ Guarantee Fund (FGF). The FGF acts like a life insurance reserve fund or a university endowment. The FGF is legally restricted and managed according to a strict investment policy. Modest annual distributions from this fund pay for the future preservation, storage, and maintenance of each permanent member’s digital content – including digital migration. Forever supports complete digital rights for its customers and the existence of the Forever Guarantee Fund enables the company to guarantee that it will preserve and make sharable the memories of permanent customers for their lifetimes, plus 100 years, with the goal of many generations beyond.
Forever is a leader in the trend towards private cloud services and earns revenue from sales of permanent cloud storage, desktop software, digital art, printing, conversion services, training and events.
Business Traction
Founded in 2012 and launched in late 2013, the company has achieved substantial traction. In 2015, Forever earned $2.8 million of revenue from 36,000 customers. The current forecast for 2016 is for the company to earn $8.0 million of revenue from 85,000 customers. Management believes the company will maintain a roughly 200% revenue growth rate for a number of years after 2016. Combined gross margin across all revenue streams in 2015 was 76%, and management believes ongoing gross margins will be approximately 70%.
Founder & CEO
Glen Meakem, the Founder & CEO of Forever, is a proven entrepreneur and leader. He was the Founder & CEO of a revolutionary internet B2B e-commerce company called FreeMarkets which he started in 1995, and took public on the NASDAQ in 1999, achieving an internet bubble valuation of over $13 billion. Under Glen’s leadership, the company survived the internet recession in 2001-2003, and earned peak annual revenues of close to $200 million with $50 million in positive cash flow. Glen led the company from founding through global expansion to over 1,000 employees and eventually sold the company in 2004 to Ariba for $500 million. FreeMarkets still exists today with hundreds of employees within the Ariba Division of SAP.
Subsequent to FreeMarkets, Glen co-founded a successful $75 million early-stage venture capital fund called Meakem Becker Venture Capital (MBVC). At MBVC, Glen led a series of investments in information technology and consumer internet companies such as Kiva Systems (sold to Amazon), HotPads (sold to Zillow), Shipwire (sold to Ingram Micro), and Cloudmeter (sold to Splunk).
Glen earned an A.B. cum laude from Harvard College and later an MBA from Harvard Business School. Glen attended Harvard College on an Army scholarship and served on active duty as a Reserve Officer for six months immediately after graduation. He later volunteered and served as a combat engineer officer in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait during The First Gulf War. Glen had early business experience as a consumer marketer at Kraft, a consultant at McKinsey, and a Manager of Strategy and Business Development at General Electric.
Investment Opportunity
Forever raised $18 million from investors through its Series A and B rounds. It has already closed on $7.5 million through its Series B-1 round. As of the date of this invitation, the company is seeking $4.7 million to fill the remainder of its Series B-1 round. Many risks remain, but the mission of Forever is to serve millions of consumers around the globe for generations, and in so doing create a large company worth billions of dollars that earns exceptional returns for investors.
Please note that this email invitation is not an offering to sell shares of Forever, Inc. and is qualified in its entirety by reference to the Forever, Inc. Series B-1 Private Placement Memorandum.
See More:
Family Office Insights: Interview
Website: www.forevever.com
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