Dive Brief:
- BarkBox and Super Chewer parent, Bark, on Thursday announced Chief Financial Officer John Toth will step down from his role "to spend more time with his family on the West Coast."
- Toth will remain with the company until a successor is named to ensure a "smooth and constructive" transition, the company said in a press release.
- Toth joined as BarkBox's chief financial officer in 2016 and remained on as Bark's CFO following its merger with special purpose acquisition company Northern Star Acquisition Corp.
Dive Insight:
Just months after helping to take Bark public, Toth will step down from the CFO role.
"John's financial stewardship over the past six years and leadership during our transition to a public company has been invaluable," Bark CEO Manish Joneja said in a statement. "He has developed a world-class financial reporting infrastructure from which we will benefit for years to come."
In late 2020, Bark announced it entered into an agreement to be acquired by Northern Star Acquisition Corp., a SPAC, in order to go public. The deal valued the pet retailer at $1.6 billion.
Bark was among a wave of companies going public over the past year, by way of initial public offering, direct listing or SPAC. The latter surged in popularity more recently, with the deal count reaching 248 last year and 436 so far in 2021, up from just 59 in 2019, according to SPAC Insider. However, as investors and regulators have increased scrutiny on these blank-check companies, deals have dropped dramatically in recent months.
Bark last month reported its first quarterly results since making its public debut in June. Bark reported net revenue increased 57.2% year over year to $117.6 million, driven by a 57% rise in DTC revenue and a 58.7% increase in "commerce" revenue.
The retailer has been able to benefit from increased demand in the pet category as consumers turned to their pets as sources of comfort since the pandemic took hold.
