The Checkout: Abby’s Better, Meatable, Eat Just and More Announce Investment Deals

Welcome to The Checkout: an express lane for weekly news you need to know, always 10 items or less.

Abby’s Better Lands $1 Million, Adds Kevin Love and Kate Bock as Investors

Nut butter and snack maker Abby’s Better has secured $1 million as part of a seed round of funding, adding basketball player Kevin Love and supermodel Kate Bock as investors. The company will use the capital to launch new product lines and grow its retail distribution to the West Coast.

The new funding brings the company’s total funding to $2.5 million since its launch in 2015, with previous investors including Food-X and SOSV.

“We have been very blessed up until this point to be connected to several influential people that have helped Abby’s Better in so many ways, including connecting us to their investor network,” founder and CEO Abby Kircher said.

The brand is currently available in retailers such as Wegmans, Stop & Shop, HyVee, Whole Foods and Publix across the East Coast and Midwest. The brand will now push to expand nationally at both natural and conventional retailers, Kircher said, and has secured a West Coast retail chain which has yet to be announced. Abby’s Better has seen 600% sales growth year-over-year, partly due to its strategic decision at the end of 2019 to prioritize its direct-to-consumer business, she said. The company will also use the capital to develop new marketing strategies to continue to grow its reach online, as well as in retail.

Abby’s Better also plans to accelerate its new product development and aims to optimize its manufacturing supply chain, Kircher said, with plans to launch new line extensions as well as a new product line in June. The brand expanded beyond nut butters last year with the launch of Nut Butter Bites.

“We have an incredibly strong team overseeing sales, marketing, and logistics,” she said. “With our team fully controlling our manufacturing and packaging, we can continue to scale and meet the demands of our fast-growing audience, perfectly positioning our company to capture significant market share.”

Cultivated Meat Maker Meatable Secures $47 Million

Amsterdam-based cultivated meat company Meatable this week announced it had closed a $47 million funding round, which the company will use to increase production at its Netherlands-based Biotech Campus Delft, as well as to expand its product offerings.

The funding round, which brings the company’s total funding to date to $60 million, included investment from Section 32, DSM Venturing and Dr. Rock Klausner, former director of the U.S. National Cancer Institute, along with previous investors such as BlueYard Capital and Agronomics.

Founded in 2018, Meatable’s proprietary technology allows the company to replicate animal fat and muscle growth to create a product in only a few weeks that mimics the texture, taste and nutrition of traditional meat cuts. Currently, the company is focused on the development of pork and beef products, as these have the most significant impact on greenhouse gas emissions when raised as livestock, co-founder and CEO Krijn de Nood said. However, he added that Meatable’s technology can be adapted for other cell-based animals such as sheep and fish.

Nood said “it’s too early to tell” when the products will launch, but said Meatable is considering rolling out in both retail and foodservice to have the most expansive reach, with the ultimate goal to achieve price parity with traditional meat. The U.S., Europe and Asia are all “promising markets” for Meatable’s products, Nood said.

“For us, it’s not only about fast to market, as we really want to make an impact climate-wise with our products and for that we need to reach as many people as possible,” he said. “While doing so, we need to produce locally to be fully sustainable.”

In an increasingly crowded cultivated meat alternative market, which includes companies like Mosa Meat, Aleph Farms and Eat Just, Nood said its cultivation methods stand out from others due to its patented “opti-ox technology” which allows the company to grow fat and muscle cells separately “with unprecedented speed and efficiency.” He also said the company is working toward developing a process that allows them to grow these two cells together.

Eat Just Raises $200 Million

Eat Just secured $200 million in new funding in a round led by Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) with participation from Charlesbank Capital Partners and Vulcan Capital. QIA and Charlesbank have also joined the company’s board of directors as part of the deal. The new capital brings Eat Just’s total funding to $650 million since its launch in 2011, with a current valuation of $1 billion.

“We are very excited to work with our investors to build a healthier, safer and more sustainable food system,” Josh Tetrick, co-founder and CEO of Eat Just, said in a press release. “Their knowledge and experience partnering with companies that are transforming numerous industries were fundamental in our decision to partner with them.”

The company will use the capital to accelerate its R&D, build out its commercial manufacturing and establish its JUST Egg and GOOD Meat brands in international markets.

JUST Egg, which launched in retail in April 2020, is now available in over 20,000 retail stores and 1,000 foodservice locations, which includes a new partnership with Peet’s Coffee announced this month for a JUST Egg sandwich menu item. Eat Just announced in October the launch of a new Asian subsidiary, Eat Just Asia, to manufacture and distribute JUST Egg on the continent.

GOOD Meat, the company’s cell-based meat brand, secured regulatory approval in Singapore in late 2020 as an ingredient in chicken nuggets, making Singapore the first country to permit the sale of such products. The company said it is still awaiting approval for GOOD Meat in the U.S. from the FDA and USDA, and said that, contingent on this approval, it will launch its cultured chicken in foodservice and eventually retail in the U.S.

The company plans to establish itself as a leader in the cultivated meat space by reducing its production costs and scaling its operations, aiming to reach price parity with conventional chicken by 2030, according to a press release.

Other investment news this week includes:

• Digital delivery service goPuff secured $1.15 billion in new funding, doubling its valuation to $8.9 billion, with participating investors including D1 Capital Partners, Fidelity Management and Research Company, Baillie Gifford, Eldridge, Reinvent Capital, Luxor Capital and SoftBank Vision Fund 1. The company aims to use the capital to grow its geographic reach in the U.S. and internationally and add new product categories and team members. It will also invest in new programs like its newly launched goPuff Marketing Solutions platform, which allows partner brands to run media campaigns on and off the platform to help them reach more consumers.

• Jerky maker KRAVE this week announced the addition of Shaun White as an investor, advisor and global brand ambassador. The brand will be launching a brand refresh across retail and digital as well as a new line extension in the second quarter of this year, and also plans to launch a flavor inspired by White this winter.