Ryan Daily’s Post

In this current economic climate, investors are looking to back companies with proven concepts and, ideally, a path to #profitability. As such, for the past year, consumer packaged goods companies have found capital harder to come by. But fresh capital appears to be in sight, as evidenced by new funds dedicated to backing early and mid-stage #CPG. This week, a new fund called Alethia Opportunity Fund I was announced, which will largely focus on funding brands in the alcoholic and nonalcoholic beverage space. Over the next year, Alethia’s $50 million fund will lead or co-lead seed, Series A, and B financing, with check sizes ranging between $500,000 and $2 million. A larger growth equity investment firm called Humble Growth also launched this week with a $312 million fund dedicated to CPG startups, with plans to write checks between $10 to $40 million. The fund will focus on four verticals: food, beverage, beauty and pets.

Tesco and other leading global supermarkets have launched a collaborative venture fund to accelerate innovation across retail. By investing in innovative start-ups and scale-ups, the venture fund aims to “identify common unaddressed challenges and identify entrepreneurs best placed to innovate new solutions.” ‘Business as usual’ continues to create problems that impact all of our lives and the planet. SMEs, however, have enormous potential to create innovative solutions to the problems we face. It's clear we understand the potential these businesses can have to create these solutions, but we are holding them back under antiquated frameworks of shareholder primacy. Under the Better Business Act, all UK companies would align the interest of people, planet and profit and would have a clear mandate to create solutions to the profound and pressing problems society faces. Read more. 👇 https://lnkd.in/eKq3RdsS Tesco | Woolworths Group | Ahold Delhaize | W23 Global

Walko Food’s NIC, a food processing company, has mopped up $20 million in a new funding round under the observation of existing investor Jungle Ventures. In less than 12 months, this investment is the second one from Jungle Ventures with Walko. In May last year, this Singapore-based VC company led a $11 million round in Walko. Know more on - https://bit.ly/4bNb50A WALKO FOOD COMPANY PRIVATE LIMITED, Vishal P. Surti, Neeraj Garg #WalkoFood #NIC #FoodProcessing #JungleVentures #VentureCapital #FundingNews #Investment #InvestorNews #IPO #VentureCapitalists #YourFirstStartup

Exclusive news from the #ExpoWest 2024: Mondelēz International has wound down its innovation hub SnackFutures, alongside its CoLab Program, through which the consumer behemoth had been helping accelerate early-stage snack brands for the past five years, and subsequently launched a corporate VC, SnackFuture Ventures. The new entity was created as part of Mondelēz’s efforts of doubling down on investments in growth-stage companies positioned to be the “disruptors of the future,” according to Richie Gray, VP and Global Head of SnackFutures. The goal is to help scale up businesses aligned with Mondelēz’s existing categories and markets before rolling them up into its portfolio. SnackFutures Ventures has invested in two Israeli startups so far: Celleste Bio Ltd. Bio, a cocoa ingredients producer using cell culture methods; Torr FoodTech that leverages its proprietary iWeld™ technology to replace unhealthy binders such as added sugar in snacks, and will continue sourcing deals globally. Interested in applying? Check out their detailed investing criteria, benchmarks, and categories below in my latest Forbes piece:

Renowned public market investor Ashish Kacholia and Asian Paints Promoter Group (Manish Choksi, Varun Vakil) have invested Rs 55 crore in Yu. Yu is an omni-channel consumer brand that claims to provide a range of instant food and beverage products using 100% natural ingredients. As part of this Series B funding round, the startup has also provided an exit to some of its seed stage investors who have realised over 4x return on their investment. Read the full story here: 👇 https://lnkd.in/dQ9Yu587 #funding #consumerfoods #brand #startup #investors #food #indianstartupnews

Top 10 FoodTech Capital Raises in the U.S. - October 1st-15th, 2024 Several interesting transactions closed in the FoodTech sector. If you would like more info on these deals or would like to discuss the capital raising market for your company, please contact me. Merger/Acquisition and Corporate 1. SIMULATE, producer of vegan chicken nuggets intended to offer an alternative to animal-based nuggets, was acquired by Ahimsa Companies. 2. Betterbin, developer of a recycling platform designed to harness the power of data, was acquired by Better Earth. Later Stage VC 3. Plantible, producer of sustainable plant-based protein intended to revolutionize the food industry, raised $30 million of Series B venture funding from Pulse Fund. 4. El Guapo, producer of artisan syrups and bitters intended to provide a variety of cocktails to customers, raised $2.5 million of venture funding from The Angel Roundtable. 5. Luke's Local, provider of food delivery service intended to help users get food delivered to their doorsteps, raised $1.39 million of venture funding from undisclosed investors. Early Stage VC 6. Sunnie, producer of pre-packaged snacks intended to provide child nutrition and encourage good health, good living, and a positive environmental impact, raised $1 million of venture funding from SWAT Equity Partners and Fulcrum Collective. Angel, Seed, and Grant 7. Broad Street Farms Freeze Dried Candy, producer of candies, raised $55,500 of angel funding. 8. Cupcakin' Bake Shop, operator of an online bakery shop intended to offer cupcakes baked from scratch daily using fresh ingredients, raised $150,000 of angel funding. 9. Familia Kitchen, provider of online food recipes intended to collect, curate, and celebrate Latinx culinary heritage, raised $50,000 of angel funding. 10. GoodSam, operator of a chocolate brand intended to manufacture cocoa products from regenerative farming practices, raised $6.48 million of seed funding. #castleplacement #capitalraising #privateequity #venturecapital #investment #FoodTech

Bleu Capital had 2 majors fundraises in its portfolio the last 3 weeks. 🔥 We're seeing early signals that our climate strategy is working. Both in the food industry, a nice little throwback to my previous role as a food operator. Indeed, the 2 companies that raised 25Me and 15Me are both in the food sector and both in climate! LA VIE™ 🐷 ☘ No need to introduce you to the fast-rising plant-based startup that makes turning vegan finally cool and without taste compromise. As I often tell Nicolas Schweitzer ⓥ🥓, its CEO, he has developed much more than a solid, fast-growing plant-based business in Europe, but a company with three major assets:  1 - A very inspiring brand 2 - An exceptional management team 3 - Great internal systems that offers total sales visibility and exceptional execution This fundraising will help La Vie to further accelerate in France and the rest of Europe, leveraging its efficient partnership with Sodebo, which allows the team to focus on the sales/marketing execution to continue to promote more plant-based consumption. More to come but definitely one of our favorite investments. HUBCYCLE: Turning food waste into tomorrow's Ingredients. ♻ When we invested in the company less than 18 months ago, the company was still figuring out a great GTM strategy and was missing an experienced execution team around Julien Lesage to deliver his brilliant vision to focus on B2B upcycling. Things have now dramatically evolved; the product fit was found, and a number of great managers came on board. The $100M sales target is achievable in the coming years with their newfound positioning, market understanding, business model and global presence. This new fundraise, with ETF Partners, RAISE Venture, Techmind and all historical investors, will give them all the necessary support to make Hubcycle a fast-growing, profitable company, the Graal! We are pleased to have several companies with promising trajectories in our concentrated portfolio, which currently supports 13 active investments. However, as you're all aware, the past 18 months have been challenging for venture investors, including us. We continue to focus on execution and are committed to assisting our portfolio in navigating these difficult times with boldness and support. Special thanks to Marc OIKNINE and @Julien-Jack RAGAZ of ALPHA CAPITAL PARTNERS UK. Thanks to all our great co investors in these 2 companies for their active supports. ZINTINUS Capagro SONAE Partech Oyster Bay Management GmbH Seventure Partners Anne-Valérie Bach Fabio Ziemssen daphni Citizen Capital SWEN Capital Partners Julien Lepleux Pierre-Eric Leibovici Stanislas Lot Remy de Tonnac Stéphane PESQUE Olivier Tilloy Olivier Mougenot Anatole Maizières Laurence CHAMBAUD

Looking for advice on scaling your #startup to reach more consumers and earn more corporate venture funding? My colleague Richie Gray has you covered. Just don't ask him about that brogue! (Credit: Laura Shulman)

Collaboration between non-competing #retailers can lead to industry-wide #innovation. By sharing knowledge and resources, they can develop new technologies and improve customer service more rapidly. Here are 2 recent examples: 👉 𝐃𝐢𝐬𝐫𝐮𝐩𝐭 𝐑𝐞𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐥: It’s exciting to see innovative partnerships emerging in the #grocery sector to accelerate industry #innovation. An interesting initiative is Disrupt Retail (https://lnkd.in/g_aRX68N), championed by Modelo Continente (#Portugal), EDEKA DIGITAL SRL (#Germany), Shufersal (#Israel), and Żabka Polska (#Poland), which seeks out tech-driven #startups to elevate #retail. Disrupt Retail concentrates on enhancing Store Operations, #RetailMedia, and Data & Customer Insights. 👉 𝐖𝟐𝟑 𝐆𝐥𝐨𝐛𝐚𝐥: Backed by the grocery-focused venture fund W23 Global, the latest collaboration garners support from global #retailers like Woolworths Group in #Australia and #NewZealand, Empire Company Limited in #Canada, Ahold Delhaize in the #US and #Europe, Tesco in the #UK, and The Shoprite Group of Companies in #SouthAfrica: https://lnkd.in/g6xksb-P. The fund will seek to invest $125 million over five years in #startups and #scaleups that deploy technology to improve customer shopping experiences, address the industry sustainability challenges and more.