Going With Their Gut: BelliWelli Raises $15.4M

Gut health-focused snack bar brand BelliWelli announced this week it raised $15.4 million in a funding round that closed in January, led by New York-based private equity firm The Invus Group. The firm has an evergreen structure, with less of a rigid timeline for exiting a business.

The news comes only six months after the direct-to-consumer-first brand made its first major move into retail, launching into Sprouts stores nationwide in mid-October. The low-FODMAP, prebiotic, allergy-friendly snack bars are made with almond flour, oat flour, sorghum, probiotics and come in eight SKUs ranging from Chocolate Chip to Strawberry Shortcake. The bars retail for $26.96 per 8-count box.

According to CEO Katie Wilson, recent SPINS data indicates that BelliWelli has become the fourth-highest turning bar in the single format category at the natural retailer on a dollars per total distribution points (TDP) basis since its launch, while the brand’s chocolate chip flavor specifically has earned the second highest dollars per TDP spot.

Founded in March 2021 by Wilson, her husband Nick Wilson, and COO Tyson Woeste, BelliWelli has now set its sights on becoming the top-selling, women-focused bar brand in the natural channel. Woeste believes that BelliWelli is on track to hit that goal within the next six months. Then, it will turn its focus to extending that position to become the top bar brand in the natural channel broadly.

“Our goal is to be the most impactful and significant women’s health brand of the decade,” explained Wilson. “That sounds big and it is big, but we think we can get there. We started in the bar aisle and we want to be the pink brand that eventually lives in five different aisles in the grocery store that signals good for your gut.”

According to a research cited by Natural Grocers, 44% of Americans reported taking supplements in 2022 in order to improve their gut health. The retailer believes that in 2023, shoppers will look to diversify beyond pills and powders, incorporating foods that can also assist with “digestive comfort.”

Building out the brand’s identity has been key to its success, the team explained. Wilson, who had previously suffered from a range of gastrointestinal issues, founded the brand with her personal health struggles at the forefront. As the team plans to steadily scale the business, both Wilson and Woeste believe having that authentic founder story guiding the path into new store aisles will be integral to BelliWelli’s longevity.

“All brands are a story, great brands are great stories but really great brands are a movement,” stated Woeste. “We’ve managed to make it here, it’s a little fire and we’ve got the kindling going.”

Hailing from backgrounds in the tech world, Woeste and Wilson believe they have a unique outsider advantage that has helped them to “break the playbook” when necessary. They emphasized they’ve balanced that outsider perspective when building their own team and focused on hiring experienced CPG individuals who can tell them when the rules shouldn’t be broken and also share their goal to open up the conversation around gut health.

In September, the brand hired Rachel Forillere, former Whole Foods buyer, as its new VP of sales and Wilson said the team has a few additional strategic hires in the pipeline in the year ahead.

Though the tech world has given the BelliWelli team an innate willingness to experiment and take risks, Wilson and Woeste aren’t eager to follow the fast growth strategies employed by these companies, which are often done in hopes of a quick exit. Woeste believes there is a larger opportunity in BelliWelli than just scaling the brand toward a future, multi-million dollar sale.

“Making really great products and being able to communicate [so] that makes women feel seen and heard is such a hard thing to do if you’re not authentically Katie and a literal living embodiment of the audience you want to reach,” said Woeste. “Half the population is women [but no] other brand speaks to people in the same way. We’re just much bigger than a bar brand.”