US-based plant-based food producer LiveKindly Collective has closed $335m in funding from investors including Rabo Corporate Investments, a venture capital subsidiary of financial services firm Rabobank.
Private equity group TPG’s The Rise Fund led the round, which also featured VC firm S2G Ventures and undisclosed new and existing backers.
The latest figure included $135m transferred from the company’s October 2020 round led by food technology-oriented VC firm Blue Horizon and backed by food ingredient supplier Griffith Foods, Trustbridge Partners, EQT and unnamed returning investors.
LiveKindly Collective produces plant-based foods under the Fry Family, Like Meat, No Meat and Oumph brands. It also runs a media platform called LiveKindly which provides vegan recipes, entertainment, cruelty-free cosmetics and other media content.
The company has raised $535m in total since it was launched by Blue Horizon in March 2020, with Blue Horizon, unnamed family offices and 10 to 15 individuals including LiveKindly Collective’s founders providing $200m in funding.
LiveKindly Collective had received $780,000 from Blue Horizon, Beyond Impact, Kale Invest, Bag Ventures and angel investors Stephen Marshall and Matthew Cauble in 2018, and 7 Gate Ventures was among its early backers.
David Knopf, chief financial officer of LiveKindly Collective, said: “With the close of this funding round, we are ideally positioned to rapidly scale our model and lead the global consumer shift toward healthy, delicious and sustainable plant-based alternatives.”
