Dear All -
Thank you all for your support over the past five months since we started Equity Animal. It's been truly a phenomenal time of growth, learning, and excitement for us all. It has meant so much to us all to hear the words of encouragement and support that so many of you have given to us and we could not be here without it.
Since we started Equity Animal in August, we've been fortunate enough to grow as a firm with the hiring of Laura Justis and Eli Hren as well as to be able to work with truly great clients.
When we started the firm, our goal was to disrupt investor relations - an industry where the average public company in North America spends $407k a year on IR. With a total of ~6.4k public companies on the Nasdaq and NYSE combined, that represents a $2.6 billion market.
In our short time in existence, we are pleased with our accomplishments, yet strive to further innovate and bring greater transparency to the financial markets.
We're thrilled to say that we have been nominated in three separate categories for the IR Magazine Awards for our work with RCI Hospitality - Best Innovation in Shareholder Communications, Best Use of Social Media for IR, and Best Retail IR Strategy.
While the traditional investor relations industry is staid and lacking of innovation, we have been able to foster an environment of creative tension by hiring individuals from traditional finance (e.g., investment banking & private equity) as well as media (e.g., Vice Media). This dichotomy of experiences and thought is what guides our founding thesis of utilizing new mediums of communication, innovative approaches, and a willingness to try the untried to amplify our clients stories, generate awareness, and ultimately bring in new investors.
We're proud of what we have accomplished so far, and are hitting the ground running in 2023 - what will undoubtedly be a record year (not hard to do when you're only ~0.5 years old).
A select few of our highlights have been working with Selina Hospitality (NASDAQ: SLNA) on the first-ever roadshow focused on retail investors, the on-going creation of a shareholder rewards program for a client - to help enhance their overlap of customers and shareholders (one of our core visions for consumer facing brands), and as noted below, our work with RCI Hospitality (NASDAQ: RICK) to host their earnings calls and work as a megaphone for the company, leading to increased awareness that has helped their share price reach an all-time high.
As we reflect over the year at what a journey it's been, we also think about our entire team's efforts of taking a risk to start this firm, dare greatly to help our clients, and work tirelessly to innovate and make an impact as we work as corporate storytellers.
We will begin to start a weekly video series on YouTube with a summary of the week that was in Investor Relations as well as a series of interviews focused on CEOs and other C-Suite level individuals.
We have some exciting new clients that we will be beginning our engagements with next year and we look forward to bringing y'all along for the ride!
Lastly, I'd like to personally thank everyone who has helped make this possible from Jordan Kinley, Andrew Stella, Sumedha Gupta, Keaton Inglis, Eli Hren, Laura Justis, and Brian Hanly, to our interns, to our lawyers David Cykiert and Shashi Khiani, to our clients (many of whom have become friends), to my parents, and lastly to everyone who has had to listen to any of my bad jokes this year!
Lastly, to leave y'all with one of my favorite quotes:
"Once the test has begun, never leave until it's done, be not labeled great or small, do it well or not at all."
Wishing everyone the best in 2023 - let's get after it!
Best,
MM