Cure Raises + Lemon Perfect to Target 🎯

GM and welcome back to This Week in CPG. Yesterday was an exciting news day, especially for the hydration space:

• Cure Hydration scores $5.6m 💰

• Lemon Perfect x Target 🎯

• Waterdrop x Walmart 💦

• Apollo circles THG 🦈

• Quinn drops some pizza pretzels 🍕

• More booze from Coca-Cola 🍹

The Big Story 📰

Cure Hydration — a female-founded, premium hydration brand that launched in 2019 — landed $5.6m in Series A funding. The round was led by one of the preeminent investors in the consumer space, Lerer Hippeau. Additional investors include Valedor Partners, Simple Food Ventures, Great Oaks Venture Capital, Joyance Partners, Silas Capital, and Belgian tennis star Kim Clijsters.

The funding will be used to support their retail expansion and grow their leadership team. In terms of recent additions to the team, Cure just announced Laura Kendrick as Chief Marketing Officer, and Stacey Gillespie as VP of Innovation.

Founded by Lauren Picasso in New York City, Cure Hydration differentiates itself by using plant-based electrolytes and ingredients that are sustainably sourced, non-GMO, and free of added sugar and erythritol.

Cure has been on a roll since launching four years ago. They’ve grown an average of 230% year-over-year, and their growth in the natural channel over the past three months has surged 316% vs. 19.5% for the overall category.

According to Caitlin Strandberg, a partner at Lerer Hippeau, “we continue to invest in Cure because the team has proved that they can scale beyond direct-to-consumer to become an omnichannel brand with a national footprint.”

The Big Story Part II 📰

Two other hydration brands — Lemon Perfect and Waterdrop — announced some major retail news:

• Lemon Perfect, the fast-growing functional hydration brand founded by Yanni Hufnagel in 2017, announced that it’s launching at 500 Target stores in six key markets: CA, GA, NY, TX, OR, and WA. Lemon Perfect also shared some impressive data: last year they added 12,000 net new retail doors, and they’re on pace for $60m in retail sales this year 🚀

• Waterdrop, the Vienna-based hydration brand known for its “microdrinks” — dissolvable water enhancers that contain flavors & vitamins — launched at over 2,300 Walmart stores. Waterdrop is the fastest-growing hydration brand in Europe. Despite being profitable, the company raised $70m from Temasek early last year. They also recently announced tennis star Novak Djokovic as an investor & brand ambassador 💦

Confident we’ll be hearing a lot about these brands in the coming years.

Deals 💰

Mergers & Acquisitions 

• The Hut Group (THG), a British brand owner and retailer, received an acquisition proposal from private equity giant Apollo Global Management. THG operates a number of brands in the beauty & wellness space. Their beauty division generated revenue of of £1.1B in 2021, while wellness brought in £659m in the same year. Financial Times

• Candy giant Hershey acquired two popcorn manufacturing facilities in Indiana and Pennsylvania. Hershey made the move in order to increase production capacity for SkinnyPop, the RTE popcorn brand it acquired in 2017 as part of the $1.6B deal for Amplify Snack Brands. SkinnyPop hit $550m in sales last year. Food Dive

• ZJLD Group, a Chinese baijiu producer and brand owner, is looking to raise nearly $812m in a Hong Kong IPO. Baijiu is a colorless spirit that accounts for 69.5% of the alcoholic beverage market in China. KKR owns a 16.2% stake in the company. Reuters

Fundraising

• Indian cricketer Hardik Pandya invested in Yu, an Indian instant meal brand. Pandya will also become a global brand ambassador. Just Food

• In other India news, Coca-Cola India invested in Thrive, a Mumbai-based food delivery service. Just Drinks

• As mentioned above, Cure Hydration secured $5.6m in funding led by Lerer Hippeau. TechCrunch

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What’s New 🤩

Apparel, Cosmetics, and Wellness

• Zara partnered with circular fashion startup Circ to produce a recycled fiber collection. Zara is also an investor in Circ. Vogue Business

• Supplements brand BEAM launched two of its popular products in sleek stick packs. The outer tube is beautiful too. Twitter

• Luxury apparel label Zegna has a new President & CEO of North America in Nilly Foster. Fashion Network

• UK-based recovery footwear brand Fitflop will open its first-ever U.S. store in New York’s Soho. Fitflop secured $30m in debt two weeks ago. Footwear News

• London-based Revolution Beauty, an accessible & cruelty-free cosmetics brand, launched a new collection at Walmart. PR Newswire

Food, Beverage, and Alcohol

• A stunning meal replacement brand from Malaysia, Oatler by MATES. MATES

• Quinn Snacks, a snack brand focused on ingredient transparency and ethical sourcing, launched a very fun new product — Pizzeria Cheezy Filled Pretzel Nuggets. Instagram

• Last week Coca-Cola and Molson Coors unveiled Topo Chico Spirited — Topo Chico branded RTD cocktails — and yesterday they introduced Peace Hard Tea. Great-looking cans. Brewbound

• Kings County Distillery, New York’s oldest and largest whiskey distillery, collaborated with Parlor Coffee to launch Coffee Whiskey. Twitter

• There’s a new luxury sipping tequila called Mayenda. Mayenda differentiates by adding two extra steps to the production process, thus extracting more flavor from the agave. PR Newswire

• The first R&D engineer from Beyond Meat, Saba Fazeli, launched Paul’s Table, a new alternative protein brand that combines plant-based meat with real meat. Paul’s Table

Data 🖥️

• For 4 weeks thru March 25th, Alani Nu Energy volume grew 31.3%, while Ghost Energy jumped 200%. Twitter

• Gen Z shifts spending from skincare to makeup. BeautyMatter

• Hair perfume is trending on TikTok. Happi

Distribution News 🚚

• Climate-friendly cracker brand Airly launched at Walmart.

• Plastic-free gum brand Milliways launched at Sainsbury’s.

• Goodles, the mac & cheese brand founded by Gal Gadot, launched at HEB.

• Austin, TX favorite Yellowbird Hot Sauce will be available on Nacho Fries at Taco Bell.