This Mother-Daughter Firm Has Sold 500,000 Blankets Inspired by a Family Heirloom

A childhood blanket once fought over by a mother and her children has grown into a business that has sold over half a million.

ChappyWrap, the mother-and-daughter brand behind that figure, has become an eight-figure business, with annual revenue in the tens of millions of dollars (tens of millions of pounds), and more than doubled its revenue between 2024 and 2025, president and chief executive Christina Livada told Entrepreneur. The company reached the 500,000 mark two decades after it began with one woven throw and a family in-joke.

Livada grew up with an oversized blanket covered in lambs that her mother, Beth Haller LaSala, had handed down to her and her brother. 'We called it Lamby, and it was everyone's favorite blanket. We all fought over it,' she said. When LaSala went hunting for another of the same quality and kept coming up short, a running joke about starting a blanket company took hold.

She acted on it in 2006, founding ChappyWrap in Boston and naming it after Chappaquiddick Island, a nod to the family's New England roots.

Why ChappyWrap Sends Its Blankets to a German Mill

LaSala could not find a US manufacturer able to reproduce the blanket. 'Most of the products on the market in the U.S. have become 100% polyester or polar fleece,' Livada said. 'You actually can't make blankets like ours anywhere in the States because the equipment doesn't exist anymore. It's kind of become a dying art.'

She turned instead to a mill in Germany, a partnership that still stands 20 years later. The blankets, a cotton blend woven on jacquard looms, now sell for about $160 (£120) each in their signature size.

For its first 12 years, the firm grew slowly and by hand. LaSala took what her daughter calls a 'boots on the ground' approach, carrying blankets to trade shows, artisan fairs and school fundraisers across New England and selling them one at a time.

Livada, then training as a speech-language pathologist, helped at weekends. When her mother's original business partner retired in 2018, she left her career to join full time, a switch she called a 'total 180' and a 'scary leap of faith.'

Her husband, Drake Livada, who had a corporate insurance job, recalled the ChappyWrap booth selling out at a holiday show. 'At that point, I was like, she's on to something,' he told News Center, Maine. He joined as chief operating officer in 2021.

The company rebranded over the following year and relaunched in June 2019, moving into direct-to-consumer and e-commerce sales for the first time. Livada handled part of the launch from a hospital bed, days before her first child arrived.

Running the Family Business After Its Founder's Death

LaSala was diagnosed with cancer in 2021, and the illness returned aggressively in 2024. She died on 10 March 2025, a week after turning 68. Her daughter and son-in-law have run the company since. Support for cancer patients had already been part of the business, which counts the American Cancer Society among its charity partners. 'Supporting patients who are undergoing treatment has always been a huge part of our mission,' Livada said.

New hires now learn LaSala's story, and one of the firm's guiding principles is a single question: 'What would Beth do?'

'She was a really warm person, and the brand and the product at its core is this manifestation of her warmth and comfort,' Livada said. 'We take a lot of pride and comfort in being able to carry on what she started.'

ChappyWrap finished 2025 with 11 employees and grew to 19 this year, its biggest year for hiring, and reports triple-digit year-on-year growth across the seven years since its relaunch. It still sells online only.

The company operates in a growing market. The US blanket market was worth about $3.44 billion (£2.59 billion) in 2024 and is forecast to reach $4.77 billion (£3.59 billion) by 2032.

'That's the most exciting part of growth,' Livada said, 'realizing we're building something so much bigger than just a product.'