SAN FRANCISCO — The Naked Market, a company building a portfolio of food & beverage brands, has raised $27.5 million in Series A funding. Integrated Capital led the round with participation from Great Oaks Venture Capital, Pacific Tiger Group, Sope Creek Capital and Clearco.
The Naked Market was founded in 2019 by Harrison Fugman, Alex Kost and Tim Marbach with a mission to create better-for-you food brands that meet the shifting interests and demands of today’s consumers. Through the use of its internal tech tool, The Machine, The Naked Market has developed the infrastructure and end-to-end expertise to conceptualize ideas and bring them to market within two to three months, with all elements from ideation to distribution handled in-house. Since inception, The Naked Market has created five (5) unique brands including Flock Chicken Chips, AvoCrazy, Project Breakfast and Beach House Bowls. Its latest brand launch, Rob’s Backstage Popcorn, is a joint venture with the global pop sensation, Jonas Brothers. With this new influx of capital, which is a mix of equity and debt, The Naked Market will focus on in-house incubation (both internal brands & celebrity products), scaling existing brands and opportunistic acquisitions.
“While the demand for better-for-you products that meet a variety of dietary needs is at an all-time high, most consumers rarely see the full range of options available to them because big box brands tend to churn out items based on their legacy infrastructure and not today’s consumer needs,” said Harrison Fugman, Co-Founder and CEO of The Naked Market.
“Having developed a platform that is optimized for new age consumers and differentiated sales channels, specifically digital, we can compete against the big incumbents in a much faster and more resource-efficient manner,” added Alex Kost, Co-Founder and COO.
“The Naked Market has built a unique portfolio model that allows the team to hone in on multiple snack products that not only lead with superior flavor and better ingredients, but are at the forefront of trends as they emerge,” said Jeffrey Yam, Executive Director at Hong Kong-based Integrated Capital. “The technology and infrastructure they have built to create and scale multiple brands is something we believe will catapult them to being the next big incumbent in the food and beverage sector.”
At the core of that tech is a proprietary data tool called The Machine, which leverages more than 15 million data points collected from Shopify, direct customer feedback, Amazon, retail point of sale, and search engine trends, all of which help inform the category opportunities the company pursues. A direct customer feedback loop also allows The Naked Market to gain an understanding of what consumers are or are not enjoying and purchasing from its own portfolio, identifying winners and quickly scaling them to become household names. On the opposite end, The Naked Market also applies a “fail fast” approach to brands that may not be resonating. Just as quickly as a new brand is scaled, so too can a brand be shut down swiftly to better utilize resources towards the brands consumers respond to most. This way, every brand and product within The Naked Market’s portfolio is innovative and truly driven by consumer demand, and is set up to meet today’s consumer needs efficiently and effectively.