Brunt Workwear explores sale as valuation tops $1 billion

Brunt Workwear was testing just how valuable the trade customer has become. The boot and apparel brand was exploring a full sale or a strategic investment that could value the private company at more than $1 billion, a striking number for a label that only launched in 2020 and already generates over $300 million in annual sales.

The process put Brunt squarely in the middle of a bigger consolidation story in workwear, where investors have been paying up for brands that can move beyond the jobsite without losing credibility on it. Brunt was working with JPMorgan and had drawn interest from both companies and private equity firms. An initial public offering could also come later, giving the brand a few different exits depending on how aggressively bidders value its mix of direct-to-consumer reach and workwear authenticity.

What makes Brunt stand out is how quickly it has turned boots into a scalable consumer business. Founder and chief executive Eric Girouard built the brand around direct feedback from tradespeople, and the company’s own 2025 recap said that year was its best ever. Brunt said it sold its millionth pair of Marin boots, added hundreds of retail stores, and donated almost 20,000 pairs of boots to trade schools. In 2024, the company marked 500,000 pairs sold for the Marin with a trophy boot, a pace that suggests real unit momentum, not just brand noise.

That growth matters because Brunt has been using one signature silhouette, the Marin, to widen its reach. The boot has become the company’s calling card, the kind of product that can move from a social-feed brand to a retail floor without losing its utilitarian edge. Third-party company profiles place Brunt in Wilmington and Boston, Massachusetts, and say it has raised about $44 million in funding, giving it enough backing to build distribution while still staying relatively young in category terms.

The valuation also says something about where the workwear market is heading. Legacy names have already become deal assets as they stretch beyond their original blue-collar base, and the $600 million sale of Dickies from VF Corp. to Bluestar Alliance last year set a recent benchmark. Brunt’s potential sale suggests that investors now see workwear not as a staid uniform category, but as a place where pricing power, brand identity, and distribution can still be rewritten.