February 25, 2021

By Lynda Kiernan, Global AgInvesting Media

Contour Venture Partners has led a $6 million round of funding for HowGood, an SaaS data platform that is the largest sustainability database offering ingredient-level sustainability insights for CPG, restaurants, and retailers. 

Danone Manifesto Ventures, FirstMark Capital, and Trailhead Capital also participated in the round, along with additional unnamed backers.

“Sustainability is no longer a ‘nice to have’ – it is a prerequisite in competing for consumer mindshare,” said Alexander Gillett, CEO and founder, HowGood.

“HowGood is making it possible for global brands to take a leadership position in a rapidly-changing marketplace by putting powerful data into the hands of decision-makers in a way that is more accessible and actionable than anything else on the market.”

HowGood’s sustainability intelligence platform, named Latis, is the only SaaS product on the market that combines comprehensive sustainability data with an easy-to-use interface requiring no advance knowledge on the part of the user.

The foundation of Latis is built on assessments of the crops sourced to make more than 33,000 ingredients and chemicals – factoring in growing standards on the farm level, labor risks, processing conditions, packaging, and transportation processes. 

Using Latis, brands can quickly determine the impact of a product or ingredient, rated against a host of metrics including greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity, health and toxicity, animal welfare, and more.

“HowGood has spent years building and productizing a research database that is unparalleled in the sustainability intelligence industry,” said Matt Gorin, managing director and co-founder, Contour Venture Partners, who was also HowGood’s seed investor.

“We are excited to partner with the company as they drive real change across the supply chain and support CPGs and retailers in their increasing efforts towards sustainable and regenerative product development,” Gorin continued. “This has now become table stakes for food brands in order to meet the demands from the consumer around food ingredient transparency across a number of variables that are important to them.”

The customer base using Latis includes some of the most high-profile brands in the world, including Danone North America – one of the top 15 food and beverage companies in the U.S., and Chipotle, which has used data generated from Latis into the creation of their consumer-facing “Real FoodPrint” feature launched in October 2020. 

“HowGood has proven to be a valuable innovation partner to Danone, helping bring in-depth sustainability insights through Latis,” says Laurent Marcel, CEO, Danone Manifesto Ventures. “We are pleased to expand our relationship with HowGood as a partner and an investor and look forward to our continued work with Alexander and the team.”

The funding garnered from this round will be used by HowGood to accelerate the development of Latis, with the potential to expand into new verticals beyond food and grocery such as health & beauty and textiles, to meet additional market demands.

– Lynda Kiernan is editor with GAI Media, and is managing editor and daily contributor for Global AgInvesting’s AgInvesting Weekly News and  Agtech Intel News, and HighQuest Group’s Oilseed & Grain News. She is also a contributor to the GAI Gazette. She can be reached at lkiernan@globalaginvesting.com.