- General
- February 20, 2019
- 4 minutes read
Plant Based Food Startup Just Said To Be Raising $200 Million
image : Just Just Inc – formerly known as Hampton Creek, a San Francisco based startup that makes plant-based products like…
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| image : Just |
Just Inc – formerly known as Hampton Creek, a San Francisco based startup that makes plant-based products like egg-less mayonnaise and a vegan egg, is said to be raising $200 milllion in new funding as it tries to step ahead of inquiries about sales and product quality. Bloomberg reports this, citing persons with knowledge of the matter.
Bloomberg says the company has gotten some initial interest from Chinese investors. CLSA, the foreign arm of Chinese investment bank Citic Securities, is said to be working on the fundraising. Just has already raised some $220 million according to Crunchbase data, from investors including Khosla Ventures, Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang, Salesforce co-CEO Marc Benioff, Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin, WP Global Partners and Italian businessman Jean Pigozzi.
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| image : Just |
The company is not without its own hassles though. Just, then known as Hampton Creek, was caught in 2016 buying its own products as stores like Kroger, Costco and Whole Foods, to increase revenue ahead of a funding round. This led to a probe from the U.S. Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), that ended with no wrongdoing found, according to Just co-founder Joshua Tetrick.
In 2017, Hampton Creek’s entire board called quits and Target stopped stocking its products after the retailer said it had received “specific and serious food safety allegations.” Just has since upheld that its plant-based food products are safe and adhere to US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) laws.
Just Inc had been valued at $1.1 billion, a unicorn status, from a previous funding round.
