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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

LIVEKINDLY Co

The LIVEKINDLY Collective Closes $335M Funding Round

Plant-based food company LIVEKINDLY Collective announced this week it has closed a $335 million funding round led by global impact investing platform The Rise Fund. Existing investor Rabo Corporate Investments as well as S2G Ventures participated in the round, which brings LIVEKINDLY’s total funding to date to $535 million.

That’s a substantial amount of funds raised for a company that’s barely one year old. LIVEKINDLY was formed in March 2020 when Foods United bought vegan-focused media company LIVEKINDLY and rebranded under its current namesake. Currently, the company is comprised of a few different brands: Oumph!, The Fry Family Food Co., LikeMeat, and No Meat. All of these brands share a common goal of getting more plant-based products to the masses around the world. 

To that end, LIVEKINDLY says it will go towards new acquisitions, partnerships, and investments, as well as expanding geographically in the U.S. and China. 

LIVEKINDLY’s funding comes on the heels of a report from the Good Food Institute that found $3.1 billion was invested into the alternative protein sector in 2020 — three times more than the amount invested in 2019. Plant-based protein took the bulk of the money, with $2.1 billion invested into the space. 

Of course, much talk these days is on the promise of cultured meat, but it will be years before products reach consumers en masse, as companies are still focused on bringing costs down and getting regulatory approvals.

In the meantime, as the numbers above suggest, there is plenty of demand for plant-based protein, including meat analogues from LIVEKINDLY’s growing roster of brands. 

The company raised $135 million in October of 2020 to expand into the U.S. That sum is part of this $335 million funding round.

The LIVEKINDLY Collective Acquires UK-Based Alt-Meat Company No Meat

LIVEKINDLY Collective, collection of alternative protein entrepreneurs and businesses, announced in a press release this week that it has acquired UK-based No Meat. The frozen vegan meat and meal brand joins LIVEKINDLY Collective’s growing portfolio of plant-based food companies.

Prior to the acquisition, No Meat was owned by Iceland Foods, a British supermarket chain that focused on frozen foods. As part of the acquisition, LIVEKINDLY will bring the No Meat brand to new consumers globally, and starting April 2021, Iceland Foods will distribute all of LIVEKINDLY’s existing portfolio brands in Iceland and The Food Warehouse stores across the UK and Ireland.

No Meat produces a variety of frozen alternative meat products, including vegan mushroom steaks, chicken strips and fillets, lamb koftas, fish sticks, sausages, and burgers. Furthermore, the company has a line of ready-to-eat frozen meals like plant-based beef pasties, pizzas, a turkey Christmas dinner, and bolognese.

LIVEKINDLY Collective was founded by the Blue Horizon Group, a food-tech focused venture capital firm, in March 2020. Since its start, it has so far acquired four other plant-based brands including Fry Family Food Co., Like Meat, Oumph!, and media platform LIVEKINDLY.

Refrigerated plant-based meats account for 33 percent of all plant-based meat sales, but frozen plant-based meats actually account for 66 percent, so it seems logical for LIVEKINDLY Collective to add No Meat and its frozen alternative meat products to its portfolio. With the frozen plant-based meat sector is currently valued at $617 million, there is certainly a profitable opportunity for No Meat to expand globally.

With a total of five brands now in LIVEKINDLY’s portfolio, the company is taking steps towards reaching its goal of “making plant-based food the new norm by building a robust ecosystem of founder-led plant-based brands.”

The LIVEKINDLY co. Acquires Swedish Plant-Based Meat Brand Oumph!

Alt-protein collective the LIVEKINDLY co. announced this week it has acquired Oumph!, a plant-based brand from Sweden. Oumph! is one of several different brands now in the LIVEKINDLY co portfolio, and the deal furthers the collective’s mission to “make plant-based eating the new normal,” according to a press release. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The LIVEKINDLY co. is itself a relatively new venture, formed in March of this year after Foods United bought vegan media company LIVEKINDLY and rebranded as LIVEKINDLY co. As my former colleague Catherine Lamb wrote at the time, the LIVEKINDLY co. is the only company that owns and operates “the entire value chain of production” when it comes to plant-based protein.

Besides this new acquisition of Oumph!, the LIVEKINDLY co. also holds a majority stake in South Africa-based Fry Family Food Co. and German startup LikeMeat, and has an equity stake in PURIS Holding, a maker of plant-based ingredients like pea protein. 

Oumph!, meanwhile, was founded in 2015 and currently serves the Nordic countries, the U.K., and The Netherlands. Its products, which include “meat” products made from SOYA protein concentration, are sold at both restaurants and grocery retailers across those countries. The brand will launch in other global markets later this year, though this week’s press release didn’t specify which ones.

Regardless, it’s an apt time to be expanding a plant-based protein brand. The market for plant-based food is currently worth $5 billion, and sales of plant-based food grew 11.4 percent in 2019. The COVID-19 pandemic has also played a role in this growth. Meat shortage scares and general wariness about where our food comes from has made more consumers open to the idea of buying and eating plant-based meat. 

That’s exactly the audience the LIVEKINDLY co. and Oumph! aim to sway: a wider group of flexitarians trying plant-based meat for a variety of reasons, be they ethical, sustainable, or health related.