Coefficient Capital invests in transformational consumer shifts.
Personalized pet nutrition platform.
To provide healthy, personalized nutrition for pets. Using quality ingredients, cooked fresh every day, prepared and portioned for your pet and delivered to your home. Each pack contains, one meal made for your pet, no leftovers.
Nate Phillips was a corporate lawyer in San Francisco when he cooked up his first batch of dog food. He wanted something better for his mini Australian Shepherd than the usual supermarket sacks of dried food. Other dog owners took notice and soon Nate began selling his product at street fairs, occasionally eating a spoonful himself to show how good it was.
Today, NomNom has 160 employees and a facility that can produce the same quality product at scale. It has tapped into a desire among pet owners for fresh, healthy, organic food, customized to their animal’s microbiome, and delivered to their door. Existing customers are incredibly loyal, and new ones keep coming, drawn in by smart digital marketing and a stream of great content about pet health.
The online pet food market grew ten times between 2013 and 2018, to $4 billion. Pet owners crave the same for their pets’ food as they do for their own: convenience, customization and quality. They want products based on specific dietary needs and the size, age and breed of their pet.
Nom Nom is the only vertically integrated direct-to-consumer fresh pet food brand. That allows control and transparency all the way from product development and preparation to customer service. The effectiveness of its model is shown by NomNom’s best-in-class retention and customer lifetime value metrics. Coefficient decided to invest because we’re pet owners ourselves, and once people discover NomNom, they keep coming back for more.
Cooking solutions for the new consumer.
Just Spices wants to transform the lives of home cooks, to nurture their creativity and reawaken their sense of discovery. It is revolutionizing the spice market through Digital engagement and innovations in retail and product development.
In 2014, when Florian Falk, Ole Stroschneider and Bela Seebach, then students in Dortmund, Germany, went shopping for spices, they found an industry which had barely changed in fifty years. The spice aisle had left behind Millennials and Generation Z, the most ethnically diverse generations in history.
Today, Just Spices provides consumers with global flavors, organic, chemical-free ingredients, convenience and a digitally-enabled experience. Their products appeal to home cooks who want to spend less time preparing meals, and who cook with their smartphone close to hand.
Just Spices turns digital data into consumer insights which lead to the rapid development of new spice blends and meal helpers. It has built a vibrant digital community of home cooks. More than 60% of its sales are generated online. Through its own in-house studio it delivers content, recipes, a mobile app and a podcast which have given it a unique and influential voice in the $60 billion global flavors market.
Just Spices has established a growing presence in a large, stable category, where there has been little innovation. It now intends to expand further in Europe and create new products to achieve its goal of making every meal more delicious.
Leader in sustainable, plant-based nutrition.
To make it easy for people to turn what they eat and drink into personal moments of healthy joy without recklessly taxing the planet’s resources in the process.
Oatly was founded in the 1990s based on research at Lund University in Sweden. Its headquarters is in Malmo, but its products are now available in more than 20 countries in North America, Europe and Asia. It has established itself as one of the most significant plant-based food brands, setting standards for quality, growth and commitment to its community.
Oatly is now committed to major investments in capacity, building the plants and equipment necessary to ensure the quality of its fast-growing portfolio of products. Its intelligent growth offers lessons for so many brands with similar aspirations.
Low carb breakfast innovator.
To make childlike cereal for healthy grownups: No sugar, no grains, no artificial flavors. Just lots of flavor, fun — and protein. Cartoons optional.
Greg and Gabi started their first company in their dorm room at Brown University, launching just after graduation in 2013. Magic Spoon has been a much easier ride: “Having live crickets in our dorm room on campus during finals? It’s been quite smooth after that,” says Gabi of Exo, the cricket flour–based protein bar brand that landed them on Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list before they sold the company to their supplier in 2018.
The protein bug stayed with them. Research showed that almost one-third of Americans follow a low-carb diet, and 18% are keto. And, above all, 87% of Americans buy cereal, most eating the same brand every morning. Gabi and Greg’s own cravings revealed that there was nothing on supermarket shelves that tasted like the cereal they loved growing up but was legitimately healthy — free of the sugar, GMO grains and artificial flavors that permeate the $11 billion category. And so they sought to tap into the emotional power of childhood cereal, while making something good enough that it could help change the system.
They spent months working to develop grain-free, protein-packed cereals that people would want to devour, but wouldn’t leave them crashing an hour later. Instead of launching at supermarkets, Gabi and Greg decided to meet their customers — those looking to replace their smoothie or bar — where they are: online. Magic Spoon’s direct-to-consumer cereals launched in April of 2019. The order rates were impressive “On the first day, we knew we were onto something pretty huge,” says Gabi. Within the first six weeks, they were sold out.
Between March and December 2020, Magic Spoon’s easy-to-ship, shelf-stable (and mood-enhancing) cereals proved so popular that they tripled staff and began shipping internationally.
Unlike most fast-growing CPG companies, Magic Spoon isn’t looking to add more categories, just more fun flavors and maybe a few surprises.
Clinically-backed ingredients formulated to become a divine part of your everyday life.
Personal care tailored to you.
To create premium quality personal care products tailored for you, and deliver them right when you need them.
Phil and Brian met at middle school in New York City. As teenagers, they shared a love of sneakers and basketball, and created a streetwear brand before heading to college. They reunited in 2016 to start Hawthorne, named after a berry used in many fragrance formulas.
They saw the opportunity to offer men the kind of quality products available to women, and make them more accessible in terms of brand and price point. For two years, they focused on Hawthorne’s fragrances, ensuring a reputation for quality which could cascade through other products.
They met the challenge of selling a fragrance product online, where you can’t smell it, by creating a quiz which leads people to narrow down their needs and preferences. Men tell Hawthorne about themselves, and Hawthorne tells them what they need – then delivers it and replenishes it before it runs out.
By 2019, having proved they could sell fragrances, they expanded their offerings to soap, body wash, deodorant, body lotion and face cleanser.
Bringing Hawthorne to more people by creating new products, new purchase experiences online and accessing new distribution channels. Hawthorne is planning a big push around education, content and discovery to become a one stop shop, brand and platform for personal care.
Making your water work harder for you.
Proper hydration brings mental clarity and physical improvements. Yet 75% of Americans are chronically dehydrated. Hydrant wants to fix that. Its science-backed products contain the ideal balance of flavor and minerals to hydrate you rapidly.
John Sherwin discovered the importance of hydration as a biology student at Oxford. Jai Kim was looking alternative to his punishing coffee habit. They connected in 2017 and created Hydrant to deliver a science-driven hydration product that tasted great. Their hydration powders contain less sugar and a fraction of the calories of the most popular hydration drinks, and deliver an optimal electrolyte balance with no artificial ingredients.
Through the smart use of e-commerce and social media to connect with communities of buyers, they developed and marketed delicious hydration powders, which could be dissolved in reusable water bottles. That matters in a world lashing out against the excessive use of plastic. Over 50% of consumers are against single-use plastic water bottles, and over 60% of Millennials use a reusable bottle.
Hydrant has also tapped into the growing market for functional wellness solutions, products for people wanting to live healthier and longer.
Hydrant has already done what no sports beverage has done before. It is functional but natural, sustainable, but convenient, and it has a strong content-driven digital presence. It is making a mark in the $15 billion US market for sports, nutrition and performance beverages. Based in New York, it is tapping into the deep networks of other thriving CPG companies.
With Coefficient’s support, John and Jai plan to look beyond hydration to other areas of wellness, where they can apply their unique combination of hard science, great taste, and deep connection with consumers.
Affordable health care for all Americans.
Autonomous last mile delivery.
Starship is the global leader in autonomous mobile delivery, solving the cost of last-mile logistics.
With a fleet of thousands of delivery robots, Starship operates on 50+ college campuses in the US and in several large European cities. Consumers place orders through the Starship app or via partner apps.
Starship’s robots are differentiated by their technology — level four autonomy — with the most miles driven and most deliveries completed in the last-mile robotics delivery industry. They serve a wide range of use cases, from food and grocery delivery to ultra-fast pharmacy and retail fulfillment.
At scale, Starship expects deliveries to cost about half the price as a human delivery, solving a key piece of unit economics.
Founded in 2014 by CEO Ahti Heinla (formerly the chief architect of Skype) and Janus Friis (co-founder of Skype), the company has more than 150 patents granted or filed across its technology stack.
Each robot can operate for 18+ hours on a single charge, navigating sidewalks and carrying up to 22+ pounds of cargo in a wide range of conditions, from busy US college campuses to Finland winters. Powered by electricity, Starship’s robots can also remove polluting cars, trucks, and scooters from the road.
We’re believers because of the wide range of use cases and strategic players interested in bolstering their last-mile capabilities. Coefficient is uniquely able to make introductions to potential partners across the retail and digital marketplace landscapes.
As we’ve detailed in our Consumer Trends reports, online grocery and food delivery are two COVID-era behaviors that have stuck — irreversible shifts that drive tens of billions of dollars in annual consumer spending in the US alone.
Yet no one — until Starship — has figured out a real solution for the cost of last-mile delivery.
Berlin based virtual pizza franchise.
Energy with benefits.
The energy category has been the most attractive growth story in the beverage industry, yet legacy brands have underserved the female consumer, skewing overwhelmingly (and often distastefully) male.
Founded by Michelle Cordeiro Grant in 2022, Gorgie is changing the narrative: The energy category “has women’s wants and needs written all over it,” yet until now, “there is not a single brand focused on building with a truly women-first lens,” she writes.
Gorgie’s drinks satisfy modern consumer demands, with zero sugar and just 5 calories per can. They deliver clean energy in the form of caffeine from green tea, plus vitamins B6 and B12, biotin, and L-theanine. And, available in flavors like Sparkling Watermelon Crush, Mango Tango, and Peach Tea, they have no artificial colors or flavorings — a major differentiator in the market.
Gorgie is also building a modern consumer brand that leads with community. It has involved its digital followers and friends in choosing flavors and functional benefits, and in building crucial buzz around retail launches. And Gorgie regularly hosts offline community events, like workout classes in New York City and the Hamptons, golf clinics in Los Angeles, brand activations around the most sought-after shows at Fashion Week, and more.
We’re big believers in Michelle, who previously founded LIVELY, a lingerie brand, which she led to a successful exit. The team had previously invested in LIVELY, and Michelle has served as a Venture Partner for Coefficient.
We’re also big believers in the energy category, which is massive, fast-growing, a large profit pool, and represents an irreversible shift as consumers continue to move away from traditional sugary soft drinks. Consumption of energy drinks has grown dramatically over the past decade-plus, taking share from soda, which has been in decline.
In our Consumer Trends reports series, Americans consistently tell us that sugar is the top thing they want to consume less. In other survey research, we’ve found that energy drinks appeal equally to men and women, yet women currently consume them at a lower rate than men. We believe this is in large part due to a lack of brands and products on the market that satisfy their needs and values.
Gorgie is now reinventing the category in both quality natural retailers and national retail chains, with market-leading velocities. (This is uniquely possible because of its clean ingredient panel, unlike most of the energy category.) It will continue to expand into conventional grocery and club stores, and online.
The Coefficient team has deep experience in scaling high-growth beverage brands, including our previous work with Vita Coco and Oatly. We look forward to supporting Gorgie as it creates the energy brand that truly resonates with the female consumer.
Transformative nutrition to help you thrive.
A new generation of pasta sauce.
Sauz is a premium sauce brand for the new consumer, bringing flavor innovation to a large, growing, but otherwise traditional category.
Sauz leads with flavor: Its unique sauces include Hot Honey Marinara, Summer Lemon Marinara, Creamy Calabrian Vodka, and Wild Rosemary Marinara.
These punch through with brightness, heat, and savory notes, differentiating Sauz from other premium sauce brands. And they are highly versatile, quickly elevating pasta — as well as proteins, vegetables, and more — into a convenient, delicious, and exciting home-cooked meal.
Founded by Troy Bonde and Winston Alfieri — college friends who realized they were “tired of boring, bland, and archaic sauces” — and based in Los Angeles, Sauz is designed for Gen. Z, by Gen. Z. “Somebody had to spice it up. So we did.”
Its bright, colorful labels jump off the shelves. And Sauz is building a brand with digital sensibilities and playful energy, building community and relevance where young consumers often discover new brands.
We’re big believers in the category and use cases.
While home cooking has surged in recent years, consumers now seek convenience with premium quality, elevated flavors, and global influences. Consumers have proven they’ll gladly pay for higher-priced sauces, which allow them to make restaurant-quality meals with minimal work and at a fraction of the cost of dining out. This will drive a further acceleration of growth in the already huge ($4 billion) pasta sauce market — especially in the premium tier where Sauz is innovating.
As we’ve detailed in our Consumer Trends reports, sauces are one of the top-growing categories in online grocery baskets.
Sauz is already a top seller in a number of grocery stores, and is expanding quickly to natural, specialty, and mass retailers.
Coefficient has deep experience in the sauces, condiments, and spices category. And we’re looking forward to helping the company as it hits this inflection point of growth, including placing one of our venture partners — a food industry veteran — on the board.
Science-backed personalized nutrition.
Zoe is a content-driven digital health platform that helps people feel healthier by eating better — using advanced scientific research to offer holistic, personalized nutrition plans.
Zoe members discover how their bodies uniquely respond to food with comprehensive at-home test kits, including a stool sample, blood sugar sensor, and blood fat test. They then take part in Zoe’s app-based membership program, which they can use to build meals, track progress, and chat with expert nutritionists.
We were blown away when we spoke to members — Zoe has more than 100,000 — who said the experience has completely changed their lives. Within just a few months, members can feel better and live healthier, with improved energy, mood, hunger, and sleep.
It’s the right solution at the right time. Our Consumer Trends research panel has spoken: Health is wealth, and food is medicine.
Given the choice, most Americans tell us they’d rather feel 25% healthier than earn 25% more money — across every income group. Most Americans would also rather feel 25% healthier than live 25% longer, according to our survey.
At the same time, consumers express a high level of desire to lose weight. More than 40% of Americans say they are “extremely” or “very” interested in losing weight.
Consumers are also focused on improving their sleep, mental health, and stress, according to our surveys. Yet in our research, many struggle to identify ultra-processed foods, which Zoe’s science suggests is deeply damaging for our long-term health.
Zoe differentiates by having a comprehensive, all-in-one offering, with a truly clinical approach and a push toward behavioral change and real food.
The company has conducted its own clinical trials, including one with 100,000 participants, proving that following its protocol leads to positive results. Its research has also been published in peer-reviewed journals, including Nature Medicine.
Founded in the UK in 2018 by a team including Tim Spector, the most cited scientist in his field, Zoe is now expanding meaningfully in the US; Coefficient looks forward to helping support that growth.
In addition to its personalized nutrition plans, Zoe has created its own real-food supplement, Daily30+, developed by scientists to increase fiber and energy. A mixture of more than 30 different nuts, seeds, and herbs, Daily30+ is based on Zoe’s research showing that people who eat a biodiverse diet of more than 30 plants per week have better gut health.
Zoe also makes nutritional science approachable through content: Its popular Zoe Science & Nutrition podcast is both a highly valuable resource and a unique tool for customer acquisition.
