In This Issue:
- Food Venture Financing Trends
- CPG Corporate Venture and Private Equity Funds
- Links to Relevant Content and Events
Food Venture Financing Trends
- Aigen, an agtech company that develops solar-powered robots for the agriculture industry, announced that it raised $12 million in its Series A financing.
- Nūmi, a French startup that creates cultivated breast milk through mammary gland cell cultures, announced that it raised 3 million Euros in its pre-seed funding round.
- Fody Foods, a foodtech startup that creates gut-friendly food products, announced that it recently closed it Series B equity investment round.
- Nestlé announced that it invested $100 million in Wonder Group, a food delivery startup company, which includes a strategic partnership between the two entities.
- General Mills announced that it acquired Fera Pets, a pet food supplement brand. The parties did not disclose the amount and terms of the deal.
CPG Corporate Venture and Private Equity Fund
This week's featured corporate venture and private equity fund is Rutger’s Food Innovation Center.
- The Food Innovation Center at Rutgers University is a unique food business incubator and accelerator that is a unit of the Rutgers New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station (NJAES). The Center supports established early stage entrepreneurs and existing food companies from concept to commercialization.
- Rutger’s Food Innovation Center provides business, marketing, food safety, product design and scale up expertise within FDA and USDA certified facilities.
- Some companies that have been assisted by Futger’s Food Innovation Center:
- Topos Teas
- The Hain Celestial Group, Inc.
- Dr. Schar USA, Inc.
- First Field
- Caldo Hot Sauce.
Links to Relevant Content and Events
ARTICLES
UPCOMING EVENTS
Naturally Chicago
Cocktails and Conversations: On the future of beverages
Tuesday, November 28 | 6:00 – 8:30 p.m. CT
Location: Koval Distillery and Tasting Room, 4241 N Ravenswood Ave., Chicago, IL
This fun event at Koval's beautiful tasting room will feature a discussion about the future of beverages featuring Dr. Sonat Hart — Co-founder and Co-owner of Koval with her husband Robert Birnecker — and Naturally Chicago Board member Kim Holstein, President and Co-Founder (with husband Scott) of Twisted Alchemy cold-pressed juice mixers.
Naturally New York
Metrics & Business Milestones for Venture Investment Today presented by New Fare Partners
Wednesday, November 29 | 12:00 – 1:00 p.m. ET
In today's difficult fundraising environment, what are VC investors looking to see from early-stage Food CPG companies that build confidence? Join Naturally New York to explore what is considered best-in-class across key benchmarks like Gross Margin, Burn-Rate, Velocities, Community Engagement, Customer Churn and details on how those metrics come together to tell a story about a company's operational efficiency, product market fit, brand strength - and a team's ability to execute.
The session will also get at:
- The path and potential a VC Investor needs to see to build conviction in an early-stage CPG company (and why).
- Basics of how core metrics and business fundamentals are interpreted by investors
- Deep dive into marketing and how early brand development signals potential to investors
Speaker:
- Hallie Bonnar, Co-Founder & Partner of New Fare Partners
Naturally Austin
Fireside Series - Understanding Term Sheets and LOI's with Ryan Gravelle
Thursday, November 30 | 4:00 – 6:00 p.m. CT
Location: Bank of America, 607 West 3rd Street Suite 2900, Austin, TX
Are you wondering what you are agreeing to when investors send you term sheets? Do you ever have questions about how much of your company you are selling to investors? Do you understand the difference between preferred and common stock and what that means in an exit? Join Naturally Austin on November 30 to get those answers.