US meal kit company Purple Carrot has announced the formation of The Garden Incubator, a new service aimed at scaling up early-stage plant-based companies.
The Garden will serve as an investor, incubator and launch pad, providing a range of services to confirm product-market fit and establish confidence and awareness for future investments and growth.
In addition to supporting entrepreneurs with business services such as strategy, branding, marketing, e-commerce, operations, fulfilment and data analytics, Purple Carrot will provide companies with up to $250,000 in seed funding.
“The plant-based space is in the midst of a powerful transformation with a range of early-stage brands that are struggling for investment dollars, product-market fit and distribution,” said Purple Carrot founder and CEO, Andy Levitt.
“With The Garden, our goal is to accelerate the positive trajectory of qualifying brands, improve their focus and enable rapid and improved distribution in the US and beyond. The de-risking of brands for future follow-on investment will be a key differentiator for this service.”
Venture capital firm Unovis Partners will provide the funding to those companies meeting its mandate and criteria through its New Crop Capital fund and serve as the founding sponsor for The Garden.
Chris Kerr, chief investment officer at Unovis Partners, said: “The Garden is a peerless concept that will serve entrepreneurs and investors equally well.
“Early-stage companies can get support by industry veterans, along with rapid market validation to de-risk for future funding rounds. We’re thrilled to be a part of this plant-based revolution with Purple Carrot.”
Founded in 2014, Purple Carrot was acquired by Japanese online supermarket Oisix ra Daichi earlier this year.
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