‘We’re Not A Household Name…Yet:’ Sauz Locks In $12M

Next-gen pasta sauce slinger Sauz announced today the closing of a $12 million funding round led by CAVU Consumer Partners, with participation from existing investors such as Coefficient Capital, Palm Tree Crew and Strand Equity.

The California-based brand will put the new cash towards marketing efforts as it works to continue building brand awareness and bring new innovations to market. The company will also use this infusion to support its growing distribution footprint, which currently totals over 7,000 retailers nationwide.

“At CAVU, we love backing brands that reimagine consumer categories and challenge the status quo,” said Jared Jacobs, partner at CAVU Consumer Partners, in a press release. “Today’s pasta sauce aisle is a sea of sameness — products that look and taste similar, but lack excitement, originality, and any sense of discovery. Sauz is bringing modern flavors and bold branding to a pantry staple that’s ripe for disruption.”

Sauz currently sells seven SKUs of pasta sauce with innovative flavors such as its recently launched Miso Marinara and Brown Butter Alfredo varieties. Jacobs has also joined Sauz’s board of directors. According to the brand, it will continue to expand to new retailers, including growing its footprint online. It will also add new Sauz varieties by the end of 2025.

“We’re not a household name…yet,” Troy Bonde, Sauz co-founder and CEO, told Nosh. “But we’re hoping that this investment from CAVU will put us well on our way. Since launching in 2023, we’ve leaned pretty heavily into digital marketing and field sampling and have been able to build an incredible community of fans. Now, we’re able to build on that momentum with scale: more retailers, more SKUs, more reach – with the hope that Sauz will make its way onto as many pantry shelves as possible by the end of 2025.”

Over the past year, the Sauz team has added two new full-time team members including Benjamin Noorani as head of Retail and Devon Freeman as VP of Sales. Noorani hails from sales positions at MALK Organics as well as Carbone while Freeman has held sales roles at CPG companies including Momofuku and HumanCo.

As the company continues to grow, Bonde said these hires will help expand both its physical retail presence as well as DTC partnerships. Since its launch in 2023, the company said it has grown revenue 148% and increased online sales 250%. The company claims it is pulling in “best-in-class velocities in retail,” but declined to specify further.

The product lineup, available across natural, mass and conventional channels at retailers including Target, Whole Foods, Kroger and Sprouts, has also grown with three new SKUs introduced in the past year.

This week, Gen Z-founded Sauz launched its first-ever kids-focused collaboration with toddler food brand Little Spoon. The new launch will bring its Summer Lemon Marinara sauce to a new and even younger generation through two ready-to-heat meals: Spaghetti + Meatballs and Chicken Parm.

“Our goal is for our consumers to get excited to see our name, whether it’s in the grocery store, in tandem with their favorite brands, or on a billboard on Interstate 10 – because they know that whatever we’re serving will bring a sense of joy and freshness to their day,” Bonde said.

According to Winston Alfieri, Sauz co-founder and CMO, each of the brand’s seven SKUs perform equally across consumer groups and different classes of trade: “Each SKU attracts a unique shopper,” he said.

As the brand continues to lean into innovation it will stick with its current playbook, embracing “flavor combinations you’ve never seen before, spices and ingredients that have never been used in tomato sauce,” Bonde said.

Is the sauce category about to boil over? Five-year-old pasta sauce producer Monte’s Fine Foods also closed a funding round recently, capping off at $2 million to support new innovations and its growing distribution footprint.

That news comes on the heels of Campbell’s completed integration of Sovos Brands, which primarily consisted of Rao’s Homemade. While the once-hot snack segment dragged on Campbell’s recent earnings, the conglomerate highlighted that pantry staples such as soups and pasta sauces buoyed the business during the past quarter as more consumers returned to at-home cooking and eating habits.