Outdoor Voices founder says energy drink investor cost her Target deal

Boulder entrepreneur Ty Haney claims an investment firm in that town cost her energy drink company a $1 million deal with Target this year by “overpromising and underperforming.”

Haney, 37, launched the apparel company Outdoor Voices in 2013. A startup darling, it came to raise $57 million and was valued at $110 million in 2018. Then it imploded, forcing Haney out in 2020 and closing all 16 of its stores. A venture capital firm bought it last year and brought Haney back.

Meanwhile, the entrepreneur has launched other companies: Try Your Best, a rewards program for consumers who engage with brands, and Joggy energy drinks. The latter was valued at $8 million and had an 850-store deal with Target by late 2024, according to court filings.

For help fulfilling the March order, Haney turned to Sinco Inc., a Boulder investment firm best known for buying an abandoned elementary school in the 1970s and turning it into the Highland City Club, an exclusive business and social club. Sinco’s CEO is Sina Simantob.

“Sinco told Joggy it would raise $3 million and ‘build a winning team’ to ensure a successful Target launch,” Haney wrote in a Nov. 13 court filing. “Sinco failed on both counts.”

The entrepreneur accuses Simantob of appointing his “personal friend with no consumer packaged goods experience” as chief operating officer, leading to defective barcoding and the loss of Joggy’s placement in Target stores, costing it $1 million per year in revenue.

“On fundraising, Sinco raised only $325,000 from outside investors, contributed $100,000 itself, and extended (then partially recalled) loans — nowhere near its $3 million promise.”

Haney’s recent court filing is a response to an October lawsuit that Sinco and three investors, including David Chamberlin and Susan Routt of Boulder, filed against her and Joggy.

For its part, Sinco claims to have run Joggy almost single-handedly in the first half of this year, including raising the $3 million and fulfilling the Target order, in exchange for promises of future equity shares that were spelled out in a nonbinding term sheet. After Haney declined to give them those shares, they sued her for securities fraud, breach of contract and more.

“Haney and Joggy intentionally or recklessly engaged in this fraudulent conduct in connection with the offer, sale or purchase of a security,” according to their lawsuit, filed in Boulder.

But Haney says Sinco and Simantob are guilty of fraud.

“This case is the product of Sinco’s overpromising, underperforming, and then attempting to rewrite a nonbinding term sheet after its failures caught up with it,” she alleges.

“The reality is there was no binding contract; Sinco did not deliver the performance it promised; and Sinco’s own conduct (operational missteps and shifting terms) caused the harm Sinco now attempts to lay at Joggy and Haney’s feet,” according to her answer to the lawsuit.