June 28, 2019

by Lynda Kiernan

Plant-based seafood brand Good Catch and its parent company Gathered Foods have closed on a convertible $10 million note co-led by New Crop Capital and Stray Dog Capital. 

No new investors participated in this round as it was fully-subscribed by existing investors, and the pro-rata rights of those investors bar the inclusion of new participants. 

This capital brings the company’s funding within the past 10 months to nearly $20 million.  In August of last year the company closed on an $8.7 million Series A led by New Crop Capital and including online natural food platform Thrive Market, Fresh Direct, Stray Dog Capital, Blue Horizon, EverHope Capital, Baleine & Bjorn Capital, M13, Starlight Ventures, and a significant showing by European poultry company PHW Group, which also partnered with plant-based burger producer, Beyond Meat.

Co-founded in 2017 by brothers Chad and Derek Sarno, along with Chris Kerr, Eric Schnell, and Marci Zaroff, Good Catch offers high protein, nutrient-rich, plant-based seafood products made from a proprietary mix of six beans – pea, soy, chickpea, lentil, fava, and navy beans. Each product is dairy-free, gluten-free, non-GMO, and contains sea algae oil, providing essential omega-3 fatty acids.

“We’re grateful to have partners in the plant-based foods sector who operate from a place of such confidence in our mission, and we’re incredibly confident about the future of plant-based protein,” said Chris Kerr, co-founder and CEO of Gathered Foods.

A Critical Moment

Growth in global demand for seafood has increased at 3.2 percent per year since 1960, outpacing the 1 percent annual growth in global population, according to Philippe de Lapérouse, co-head and managing director with HighQuest Consulting. Over the same time period, per capita consumption of seafood has more than doubled from 10 kilograms per person to more than 20 kilograms per person today, driven by demand from Asian markets where seafood has historically been a cornerstone of the regional diet, and by consumers in developed markets who are looking to include healthier protein in their diets.

This unsustainable dynamic, however, is creating a scenario that will see global fisheries collapse before 2050, according to Good Catch.

“The only truly sustainable seafood is seafood that allows fish to remain in the ocean,” said co-Good Catch CEOs Kerr and Schnell. “It is abundantly clear that we need a new approach to seafood. Importantly, this is a global concern and we need global stakeholders to put this approach into action; time is not on our side.”

A School of Rivals

When it comes to innovating plant-based or alternative proteins, beef, chicken, and pork have been the focus of the majority of startups in the space, however, the gap in the market for alternative or vegan seafood has led to a recent boom in startups looking to gain market share. 

~ New Wave Foods, an alum of the Silicon Valley-based IndiBio tech accelerator, launched two products: an algae-based popcorn shrimp and an un-breaded, cooked shrimp, ahead of schedule in April 2017 due to high demand.

~  Wild Type, a company growing cultured meat in a laboratory, recently raised $3.5 million through a Seed Round in March of this year led by Spark Capital and including Root Ventures and Mission Bay Capital, along with other unnamed investors, to further the production of lab-grown salmon.

~ Similarly, another startup, Finless Foods (another alum of IndiBio) is also engaged in tissue engineering to develop lab-grown bluefin tuna after raising a $3 million seed round last year.

~ True Ventures and Collaborative Fund co-led a $4.25 million seed round for Terramino Foods, an alternative protein startup making meat and seafood products from fungi that have the same texture, taste, and nutrition as animal-based meats.

~ And recently, in April of this year, Singapore-based cellular seafood startup Shiok Meats raised a $4.6 million Seed round in support of its cellular aquaculture technology.

Capital Plans

Together, the founding team of Good Catch bring a combined 100 years of mission-focused entrepreneurship to the table.

With the knowledge that every four out of 10 pounds of animal protein consumed on a global scale are fish, leading to 90 percent of the world’s marine fish stock to be either exploited, over-exploited, or depleted, the team has created a product line that offers consumers the seafood they want without the ecological impact. 

The company’s plant-based tuna packets, which come in Mediterranean, Naked in Water, or Oil & Herbs flavors, are gluten-free, dairy-free, GMO-free, are flavored with sea algae oil, contain omega-3 fatty acids, and are free of toxins often found in caught seafood, such as mercury, microfibers, or micro plastics. The company has also developed plant-based crab cakes, fish sliders, and burgers.

Good Catch plans to use the capital from this convertible note to support scaling up production and for working capital costs. In support of its plan to scale, the company is building a $20 million facility in Ohio, which will have the capacity to produce $100 million in products each year, and will have the ability to help other plant-based companies by contracting with them on production.