With the healthy food trend going strong, AccelFoods, is on a mission to invest in the future of natural foods. The women-led venture capital fund invests in healthy packaged food and beverage companies and provides them with industry access, expertise, and infrastructure.
With about $90 million in assets, AccelFoods has more than 36 brands under its umbrella, including Roar Organic, Wandering Bear Coffee and Skinny Dipped Almonds. Founded in 2013, the fund is led by former corporate lawyer Jordan Gaspar and Lauren Jupiter, a former investment banker for major food companies.
Jupiter, the co-founder and managing partner of AccelFoods, told Yahoo Finance that it invests in companies with products they’d use themselves. “Key to us is the ingredient panel, and making sure that any company we invest in is something that we'd be comfortable bringing home to our family, our kids to eat,” she said.
Jupiter said it looks at companies with high-growth potential that are “challenging the status quo, either via an ingredient profile or via a route to market.”
Healthy foods for more people
The New York-based fund is banking on consumers “looking for new products that speak to them differently than the old brands that are more established.”
Jupiter said they’re looking at “the millennial consumer that's not looking to continue to consume the brands necessarily that their parents grew up on, and the baby boomers on the flip side, who are trying to replace their own kind of health needs with clean healthy food options.”
And as their brands grow, AccelFoods hopes to expand its reach so their products are accessible to more people, available not only at Whole Foods but also at the Kroger’s, Targets and Walmarts of the world.
Jupiter said one of the fund’s greatest assets is that it’s run by women. After all, she said, “The vast majority of purchasing decisions are made by the female head of households.”
“What are the choices that moms like us —busy working moms — are making to increase the health, the convenience of their families, and make sure everyone is getting what they need."
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Marina is a production assistant at Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter at @marina9527.
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