Daniel Lubetzky, the founder and executive chairman of Kind Snacks, has invested in Seattle-based Greek yogurt brand Ellenos.
The partnership aims to propel Ellenos’ market expansion while leveraging Lubetzky as a mentor to the brand’s founders and leadership team.
Ellenos’ Greek yogurt is strained and blended over a five-day process and uses a signature blend of cultures. Its yogurt flavours include marionberry, lemon curd and passion fruit.
“Beyond falling in love with Ellenos’ delicious Greek yogurt, what drew me to the brand was its integrity in every respect,” said Lubetzky.
“Not only is Ellenos obsessive about the craft of yogurt-making and sourcing the highest quality ingredients, but its leadership and team exemplify my belief that how we build a brand is as important as what we are building.
“The sense of community that Ellenos has created in the Pacific Northwest is palpable and I am honoured to support the brand’s founding team throughout its next chapter.”
Lubetzky’s Equilibra Partners Management will become Ellenos’ second private equity partner; Monogram Capital Partners, a Los Angeles-based private equity firm, invested $18 million in the brand in 2018.
Ellenos’ yogurt flavours include marionberry, lemon curd and passion fruit.
Founded in 2013, Ellenos was born when husband and wife, Bob and Yvonne Klein, convinced Australian father and son duo, Con and Alex Apostolopoulos, to bring their long-standing Greek family yogurt recipe to the US.
The families joined forces to launch Ellenos in Seattle, beginning with a fresh scooped yogurt bar. In 2016, the brand began selling packaged yogurt in retail grocery stores, and it has grown its product distribution from nine US states to 29 over the past year.
“We make amazing yogurt – I’m confident in that – but the American packaged food industry is totally different from what we’re used to in both Greece and Australia,” said Con Apostolopoulos, co-founder of Ellenos.
“So while we have a ton of momentum right now, to have someone like Daniel as a partner – a fellow founder who has achieved aspirational success as a disruptor in the food space – it gives us this incredible opportunity to leverage his knowledge to help us take Ellenos to the masses and scale this community that we’ve built in the Northwest across the entire country.”
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