Bloomberg writer Olivia Zaleski reported last week that, “Goldman Sachs Group Inc. participated in a $65 million investment in Ripple Foods Inc., a little-known beverage company that makes a milk-like drink from yellow peas.
“The investment, which was led by Euclidean Capital, includes funding from Khosla Ventures, Fall Line Capital and S2G Ventures, a food and agriculture investment firm started by OpenTable Inc.’s founder. It’s Ripple’s largest capital infusion and brings the two-year-old company’s total funding to $110 million.
“Ripple has sold the investors on its Ripptein, pea protein that has been extracted from the vegetable by a process that the company says strips out the funky flavor often found in plant materials. The result is almost purely protein, say Ripple’s founders Neil Renninger and Adam Lowry.”
The Bloomberg article added that, “For the past four years, investors have put well over $1 billion each year into food and beverage startups, including Impossible Foods Inc., which makes a red-meat replacement from plants, and Memphis Meats, which grows chicken cells in a laboratory. Last year, the sector attracted almost $2 billion in equity financing, according to research firm CB Insights.”
