Nutrition Facts

• Number of Brands Featured: 33

• Grocery Aisles: Fridge & Frozen, Pantry, Sweets & Snacks, Beverages

• Gender Ratio: 10 brands featured are woman owned (30%)

• Product Themes: Pickles, popcorn, protein, prebiotic fiber, hydration, tea, soda, pasta sauce, soup, mayo, hot sauce, breakfast, sour candy + more.

• Distribution: Many of the 33 brands are already on the shelf at Target, Whole Foods, Walmart, Costco, CVS, and Kroger either regionally or nationally. If you’re developing a retail strategy, check out the Instagram profiles of the brand featured below to see which smaller retailers took an early bet on them.

• 13 investors have 2+ portfolio companies that raised seed in 2025:

  • The Angel Group: Proper Good, Painterland Sisters, Ayoh! Foods, Jesse & Ben's

  • Tonic Ventures: Waku Prebiotic Herbal Tea, Ayoh! Foods, Painterland Sisters, Leisure Hydration

  • Scoop Ventures: Ayoh! Foods, Painterland Sisters, Proper Good

  • Melitas Ventures: Harken Sweets, Final Boss Sour

  • Redwood Consumer (fka Santatera Capital): Refresh Gum, SUNNIE

  • Simple Food Ventures: Final Boss Sour, Ayoh! Foods

  • Great Circle Ventures: Ayoh! Foods, Habiza Hummus

  • Midnight Venture Partners: Leisure Hydration, Jesse & Ben’s

  • Branch Venture Group: Leaven Foods, Waku Prebiotic Herbal Tea

  • Supernatural Ventures: Jesse & Ben’s, Painterland Sisters

  • Siddhi Capital: Unbun Foods, Jesse & Ben's

  • Morrison Seger: Habiza, Kiki Milk

  • Shrug Capital: Monte's Fine Foods, Khloud Popcorn

  • Some investors may have participated earlier vs. a seed round in 2025.

• International: Unbun and Flings are based in Canada with customers in America. Cadence expanded to the UK & Ireland. And Something & Nothing was born in the UK. Otherwise all brands featured are HQ’d in America.

• Founder Edge: Unfair founder advantages come in many shapes and sizes in CPG. Some are family owned or inspired by longtime friendships. Others are supercharged by past experiences operating brands of all sizes. Additionally, some of the founders worked as consultants or lawyers, or earned a PHD or MBA that comes in handy when building a complex supply chain from scratch.

• Second Time Builders: The brains behind exited brands Daring, Veggie Straws, ParmCrisps, Thinsters, and Shaka Tea are building their next brands. See more second time builders here and history of F&B Acquisitions here.

• Operator Experience: Some of the founders learned to scale at PepsiCo, Red Bull, Johnson & Johnson, Nike, Caulipower, GoGo Squeeze + more.

• Discipline: Founders who were athletes, soldiers, or who have kids know what it means to compound practice into ROI and power through tough days.

• Celebrity CPG: Four founders featured are actors, TV personalities or creators: Robert Downey Jr., Khloe Kardashian, Molly Baz, London Lazerson.

• Partnerships: These founders expanded from typical collaborations to creating custom flavors with restaurants, brands in other aisles, movies, and later stage or acquired companies to pull in new audiences. Some stand out favorites:

  • Good Girl Snacks x SmartSweets pickle candy for April 1st

  • NO CAP! Soda Pop x ICEE (via BevNet)

  • Lexington Bakes x Equator Coffee pumpkin spice espresso brownie

  • Monte’s Fine Foods x Bloomingdale’s merch line

  • Better Sour x Moana 2 passion fruit gummies

• Rebrands: 9 of the brands updated their packaging or designs since launch.

• Sources: Funding data via Crunchbase, PitchBook, Nosh, BevNet, press releases like the Startup CPG x Maven Consulting newswire, and official brand channels. Funding listed is total amount raised to date, as some raised pre-seed too. Retail, partnerships and rebrands via my Brandelorean time machine.

• Disclosure: I’m friends with some of the brands and consulted with two of the funds listed. My content always comes from an unbiased lens informed by data and studying the emerging CPG landscape like a sport since 2017.

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