July 27, 2016

Google Ventures has led a $30 million Series B round of funding for food tech startup, Ripple Foods. Other investors included in the round were Prelude Ventures, Tao Capital Partners, Tim Koogle, Khosla Ventures, S2G, Collaborative Fund, Blueberry Ventures, Seth Goldman, and Radicle Impact.

Founded by Adam Lowry and Neil Renninger in Emeryville, California, Ripple Foods created a yellow pea-based milk-alternative drink that provides eight times the protein content compared to almond or rice-based dairy alternative products and half the sugar content of cow’s milk.

The company began selling its product in Whole Foods on the West Coast and Midwest in April and launched sales at Target stores nationwide on July 25.

“If you take a look at how almost every upstart launches in the CPG channel, you almost never see national launches. With Ripple, they went to Whole Foods and then with Target nationally,” said Google Ventures General Partner Andy Wheeler, who joined the board with the investment.

The plant-based dairy alternative beverage category hs been experiencing unprecedented growth in recent years. Since hitting a high value of $1.2 billion in 2008, U.S. sales of soy milk have fallen by 57% by 2015, according to Euromonitor data reported in Food Dive. Over the same time period, sales for other non-dairy milk alternatives have soared by 14-fold.  Soy’s overarching genetic modification and the fact that it can’t compete with nutritional advantages offered by other plant-based alternative dairy products has hurt it at the retail level.

These trends are not lost on investors or larger CPG companies looking to capitalize on shifts in consumer sentiment. Earlier this month Danone, maker of popular dairy brands including Activia, Oikos, and Dannon yogurt, agreed to acquire U.S.-based organic and dairy alternative producer, White Wave, in a $10 billion deal. Meanwhile, California-based producer of artisanal, dairy alternative foods, Kite Hill, closed on an $18 million round of funding led by General Mills’ venture arm, 301, Inc. and CAVU Venture Partners.

Ripple plans to use the fresh capital to fund the addition of 40 employees by 2017 to strengthen its R&D, sales, marketing, and back office teams.

In the near future, Ripple Foods has plans to launch a non-dairy yogurt, cheese, or ice cream said the company’s co-founder in a statement, and is on pace to see a line of several products on the market by next year.

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Lynda Kiernan