I’m excited to announce our most recent group of innovators who have joined the portfolio of companies we invest in and work with via Food-X and SOSV.
Among the seven companies are a conversational commerce disrupter, a venture offering clean label flavor innovations, an AI-powered real-time consumer insights startup and a fresh food company harnessing smart technology.
The seven startups were selected from a pool of nearly 500 global applicants. Five of the eight have international teams with the following countries represented: Croatia, India, Russia and Spain.
Our mission is to scale change throughout the food system by investing in early-stage entrepreneurs that aim to solve the biggest global food challenges: health and wellness, sustainability, food safety, traceability, supply chain efficiency, transparency and more. For participants in our accelerator, we look for startups within the traditional food value chain, such as production, processing, distribution, consumption and disposal, as well as those leveraging emerging technologies to transform the industry and those developing nutraceuticals for the burgeoning food as medicine movement.
“In an increasingly competitive food accelerator and incubator space, Food-X continues to be a dominant force in delivering value to startups,” said Peter Bodenheimer, program director, Food-X. “As the first-to-market accelerator, the unmatched access to our extensive network has proven to be instrumental in propelling companies to the next critical stage. Since Food-X started in 2014, our startups have raised more than $26 million. We look forward to guiding our exceptional Cohort 9 entrepreneurs on their food innovation journey.”
Cohort 9 is comprised of the following:
- Mushrooms Cups: Infusing beverages, such as instant organic coffee, with functional wildcraft mushrooms to boost energy, stimulate cognitive function and supercharge the immune system.
- Paragon Pure: Providing natural and authentic powdered flavors captured within a clean-label wholegrain carrier. Formerly Paragon Flavors
- Kojo: Designing “shamelessly meaty” high-protein, plant-based snacks, including two lines of soy and mushroom based jerkies. Formerly Mindwell Snacks
- Simply Good Jars: Preparing and distributing fresh, convenient jarred salads, meals and soups – all under 600 calories – in smart fridges with the mission of eliminating single-use plastics and hunger through a reusable jar program.
- Sweetie Pie Organics: Offering clean, organic functional food for moms-to-be, new moms and their babies, such as morning sickness drops, lactation bars, ready-to-drink lactation smoothies and more.
- Vaartani: Enabling brands to stay on top in their food categories by providing AI-powered real-time meaningful insights derived from consumer conversations and reviews on individual products.
- Voix: Providing the first AI-automated restaurant voice assistant, which helps restaurant owners save time and money by automating orders, managing reservations and upselling specials.
About Food-X
Founded in 2014, based in New York and recognized by Fast Company as one of the world’s top 10 most innovative companies in the food category, Food-X is the first and most active food innovation accelerator in the world. With a mission to scale change throughout the food system, the accelerator empowers early stage food tech companies across the supply chain, from agtech through direct-to-consumer brands, to bring their products and services to market at speed. Food-X is powered by SOSV, a global venture capital fund with $525 million in assets under management and a staff of more than 100 people operating world-class vertical accelerator programs.
Media Contacts:
Relev8
Ray Yeung | Nancy Zakhary
ray@relev8.co | nancy@relev8.co
