Ripple Raises $49M, Kin Heads To Target 🎯

Author

CPG WIRE
December 02, 2023

GM and Happy Saturday, folks. Here’s what we’re covering this morning:

  • Pharmavite acquires Bonafide 💊

  • Faherty explores stake sale 🧣

  • Suntory backs Atomo ☕️

  • SMCP partners with Reliance 👀

  • BeatBox grows fast 📈

Deals 💰

Mergers & Acquisitions 

  • Pharmavite, the owner of Nature Made and Uqora, has acquired Bonafide Health for $425M. Bonafide Health is a women’s wellness brand focused on treating symptoms of menopause. The company was co-founded by Michael Satow in 2017. With Equelle, Uqora, and now Bonafide Health, Pharmavite has an impressive portfolio of women’s wellness brands. Femtech Insider

  • Apparel brand Faherty is exploring a minority stake sale. The profitable company was founded in 2013 and currently operates 60 stores across the U.S., up 4x since 2019. Fashion Network

  • Private equity firm EagleTree Capital has acquired Summit Hill Foods which manufactures and markets brands like Better Than Bouillon and The Original Louisiana Hot Sauce. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed. Food Business News

Fundraising

  • Plant-based milk producer Ripple Foods raised $49M in Series F funding. The company was founded in 2014 by Neil Renninger (co-founder of Amyris) and Adam Lowry (co-founder of Method). Thus far Ripple has raised upwards of $274M. AgFunder News

  • Atomo Coffee, a Seattle-based startup that produces an eco-friendly coffee alternative, scored a multimillion-dollar investment from Japanese beverage giant Suntory Holdings. Atomo was founded in 2019 and raised $40M last year. Bloomberg

  • Oakland-based BioFluff has raised $2.5M in seed funding to scale its plant-based fur alternative. Astanor Ventures led the round. BioFluff uses proprietary technologies to convert plant fibers into fur and shearling alternatives. Their solution is considerably more sustainable than animal-derived or plastic-based options. Vegconomist

  • London-based clean energy drink brand Virtue Drinks secured £1.2M in funding. The brand launched in 2016 and claims more than 15,000 points of distribution in 35 countries. FoodBev

  • Myni, a Canadian eco-friendly cleaning products company, closed a $2.8M funding round. Investors include Anges Québec, AQC Capital, and Accelia Capital. GlobeNewswire

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What’s New 🤩

Apparel, Cosmetics, and Wellness

  • Lifestyle brand Madhappy teased their newest retail store in Miami. This will be their second permanent location after opening their first in West Hollywood last week. Twitter

  • SMCP, the luxury fashion group that owns Sandro, Maje, and Claudie Pierlot, announced a new partnership with Indian retail juggernaut Reliance Retail. The plan is for Reliance to open 10 stores on behalf of SMCP over the next three to five years. Reliance has quickly become the gatekeeper to India for western brands — Sephora recently signed a similar agreement with them. Reuters

  • Ridge, the company that’s best known for its wallets, expanded into an interesting new category — luggage. Ridge has spent most of 2023 aggressively expanding into new categories. In addition to launching timepieces, they also launched a line of rings. Ridge

  • Suncare brand Vacation introduced a new product called Orange Gelée. Orange Gelée was a very popular tanning product in the 70s and 80s before it disappeared from shelves, and Vacation has revived it. Great-looking packaging 🔽 Business of Fashion

  • Skincare brand Topicals is launching a new barrier building lip balm called Slick Salve on 12/5. Instagram

Food, Beverage, and Alcohol

  • Boulder-based The Good Crisp Company launched another new product — Spicy Cheese Balls. Earlier this year, the better-for-you chips brand launched their first-ever line of bagged chips. Terrific brand and company. Instagram

  • Sandwich chain Subway is following a number of its fast casual peers and launching a line of sauces for retail early next year. Lancaster Colony Corp makes a fortune manufacturing and marketing sauces for Chick-fil-A and Buffalo Wild Wings in retail, but I’m not convinced this will work for Subway. Instagram

  • Celebrity chef Guy Fieri and Two Roads Brewing Co. have released their boozy RTD collab — Flavortown Spiked. Their debut product is Flavortown Spiked Fruit Punch which is available everywhere Two Roads Brewing Co. is sold. PR Newswire

Data 🖥️

  • BeatBox, an Austin-based purveyor of RTD alcoholic beverages, sold a whopping 4.5 million cases this year. Last year they were on pace to sell 1.8 million cases, so a spectacular growth story. Twitter

  • The vegan cheese market is on pace to exceed $8B by 2032, an increase from $4.2B this year. Vegonomist

Distribution News 🚚

  • Non-alcoholic beverage brand Kin Euphorics is now available at Target.

  • Sparkling adaptogenic water brand heywell launched at Wegmans, Harmons, Heinen’s, and Mariano’s.

  • Australian scalp care brand Straand launched at Sephora in the UK.