Strvye Co-founders Reunite to Acquire and Invest in Emerging Brands

After taking the meat snack company public in 2021, Stryve co-founders Joe Oblas, Ted Casey and Gabe Carimi are seeking to apply their expertise to a new crop of companies by acquiring and investing in CPG brands under a new holding company currently operating under the name Two Birds, One Stone.

Oblas, Stryve’s former co-CEO, said the company is aiming to bring small brands much-needed “leadership” in addition to growth capital, representing “killing two birds with one stone.”

Two Birds will seek to acquire brands with low in-house overhead, but which are forced to hire expensive consultants and fractional executives to fill roles in HR, marketing, accounting and finance. Bringing these roles in-house and sharing costs between companies is a low-cost method to spark growth, Oblas explained. This strategy was proven during his time at Stryve, he said, which acquired emerging biltong brand Kalahari Biltong.

“Many of these small brands have a very difficult time ever getting to profitability and the only ways they really can do that is to stay very small, team wise and overhead wise, which tends to stymie their growth,” he said. “We believe that reducing the SG&A expenses at the businesses themselves, lessens the reliance on external capital, and the faster you can get these things to profitability. Then you can only raise capital from a position of strength… not to raise capital for the sole sake of funding losses.”

Ultimately Oblas hopes to have four entities in the company’s portfolio, two of which are already accounted for: egg white-based chip company Quevos and supplement and energy drink brand ProSupps. Two Birds has acquired the former and made a “significant investment” in the latter, which was also co-founded by Oblas and Casey before being sold to North Castle Partners in 2016.

Terms of both deals were not disclosed. Quevos, which counted KIND founder Daniel Lubetzky as a former investor, has $1 to $3 million in revenue, Oblas said.

Two Birds plans to announce its next two acquisitions before Natural Products Expo West in March. Oblas declined to answer questions related to potential interest in Stryve Nutrition, citing a non-disclosure agreement.

In the near term ProSupps, will focus on expanding distribution in the specialty channel building sales on the company’s owned domain and driving awareness of its newly launched energy drink, Hyde. Meanwhile, Quevos will target quickly gaining revenue by growing across channels, including convenience and club, and optimizing its supply chain and manufacturing.

Other holding companies are trying a similar strategy. Since November, Powered by Real Food From the Ground Up has acquired both PopChips and Food Should Taste Good, believing that streamlining back-end operations and sales efforts can lead to salty-snack category domination. Two Birds, however, won’t focus on brands within the same category, instead building a portfolio of brands across the store that can either be spun off into their own entities or sold to a strategic.

“We’re not a glorified incubator, but we believe we’re, we’re the incubator, but we’re also elementary school, middle school and high school,” Oblas said. “I think we need to get them ready for college.”