Sentinel Synergy: Grovara Celebrates Best Month Ever By Welcoming Brutus the Manatee

This has been a remarkable year so far for Grovara. In addition to the $5.5 million seed round we raised in the spring, we expanded our team across the globe and we are now well positioned to accelerate our growth.

Heading into July, Chief Innovation Officer Peter Groverman promised our team that if we beat our forecasted monthly sales goal that we’d make another key addition to our team.

As we make the turn into August, we’re proud to report that not only did we beat our forecasted goal, but Grovara had its best month ever on our first-to-market global wholesale marketplace for American better-for-you brands.

So this week we welcomed our newest Grovara team member: Brutus.

Brutus is an imperiled West Indian manatee that calls Blue Springs State Park in Florida home. Grovara became his adoptive parent thanks to Save the Manatee, an award-winning nonprofit co-founded by Jimmy Buffet that works to protect manatees and their aquatic habitat for future generations. Unfortunately, 2021 has not been a very good year for manatees in South Florida, dying at never-seen-before rates.

Manatees are listed as vulnerable at the international level by the IUCN World Conservation Union and listed as threatened at the federal level by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and state level by the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission. These unfortunate designations are mostly caused by human activity. Since record-keeping began in 1974, more than 41% of manatee deaths were the result of human-related activities, and almost 34% were due to watercraft collisions (the largest known cause of manatee deaths).

At Grovara, we’re building toward a future where better-for-you products can be accessed everywhere on the planet, part of a supply chain that operates responsibly, and connected to a trusted, transparent ecosystem. Because of their diverse herbivore diet, the gentle and slow-moving Manatee serves a special purpose as indicators of the health of their marine ecosystem.

Grovara aims to serve as a similar sentinel for the global wellness ecosystem.

Please join us in welcoming Brutus, and the next phase of Grovara’s growth.