Wednesday, March 24, 2021

"Vegan unicorns? Yes. Vegan unicorns"

I never thought of unicorns as carnivores.

From The Hustle:

Unicorns

Prince Harry is coming to Silicon Valley. The Duke of Sussex is taking on a role as “chief impact officer” at the unicorn mental health startup, BetterUp Inc.

Cue the awkward Zoom meetings....

*****

.... Vegan food unicorns are taking over the market

There’s a new cow in town, and this one really is ready to jump over the moon.

NotCo is a Bezos-backed plant-based protein company from Chile that makes vegan milk, mayonnaise, ice cream, and burgers.

They’ve raised $120m so far thanks to Giuseppe, their patented AI software, which helps them analyze and develop new product recipes.

Now, they’re eyeballing a $1B valuation as they expand further into the US, Canada, and Mexico.

There’s a surprising number of vegan moo-nicorns

According to Lever VC, a leading investor in the alt-protein space, the plant-based meat and dairy industries are worth a combined $22B and are growing fast.

  • Just Inc. (plant-based eggs) is valued at $1B+.
  • Beyond Meat (plant-based meats) has an $8.8B market cap.
  • Oatly (oat milk) recently raised $200m at a $2B valuation and is reportedly targeting a $10B IPO....

....MUCH MORE, today's Mailbrew is surprisingly wide-ranging.

Two quick notes on Just (formerly known as Just Mayo):

They also just raised another $200 million and Dec 5 2020:

We don't much care for Just Mayo or its parent, Hampton Creek, before or after the name-change and before or after the pivot from vegan to meat. Just, a bit too skimmy, scammy, flim-flammy....