NEW YORK  — Existing investors continue to see success in Mezcla, a plant-based protein bar company, which recently raised $4 million in a Series A funding round.

Griffin Spolansky, co-founder and chief executive officer of Mezcla, said the funding round was led by existing investors Dream Ventures and Santatera Capital. Other investors included Federico Muyshondt, CEO of Body Armor, and Steve Platt, CEO of BrightFarms among others.

Mezcla was founded in 2019 by Spolansky and Coco Sotelo, co-founder. Mezcla are plant-based protein bars formulated with pea protein crisps, quinoa, pumpkin seeds, nut butters, and added flavors like pistachio and blueberry.

The company has participated in three funding rounds and has raised $1.1 million in a pre seed, $2.3 million in a seed, and now $4.1 million in a Series A. The company has raised $7.5 million total.

“I think we were able to do that because we’ve delivered on everything we said we would deliver on for the past two or three years,” Spolansky said. “What’s exciting for us is you see that continued belief in our business.”

The company is planning to use the funds to grow within retailers, grow its team, and scale production.

“A big portion of our expansion in 2024 and beyond is going to be in retail and working hard to make sure we’re supporting them (retailers),” Spolansky said. “We have a really strong team right now and should be adding a few members and then trying to be pretty lean overall. I think a big thing for us is we’ve honestly been selling faster than we can produce, in some ways, and right now we’re working hard to stay in stock.”

Photo: Mezcla

Angel Leaño, principal at Santatera Capital, added: “We project that with this funding round, the company can increase its revenue in the next two years by more than four times and expand its distribution to more than three times. At this stage, we believe the company will be in an excellent position to consider a subsequent funding round, further propelling growth and enhancing the brand's positioning in the future.”

In addition, Richard Blankenship, CEO at Dream Ventuers, and Alejandro Gonzalez, managing partner at Santatera Capital, will join the company’s board.

“They will sit on our board and help us continue to guide this company as we grow,” said Yoga Acharya, chief operating officer at Mezcla. “That means thinking through GTM (go-to-market) strategy, product line extensions, innovation, company capitalization, and much more.”

Santatera Capital invested in the company for a second time.

“The primary reason is the exceptional team behind the brand,” Leaño said. “Griffin, an amazing founder, Yoga, along with the entire team have shown an enormous success positioning the brand and taking it to the next level. The product itself is outstanding, bringing innovation and setting a high standard for taste and texture within its category. Further contributing factors include the company’s impressive traction, characterized by consistent triple-digit growth, driven not only by expanding distribution but also accelerating on-shelf performance.”

Accuracy has been a key factor in continued growth and investments for the company.

“I think it’s really easy to over project on your numbers and over project on your revenue and not necessarily be as accurate as you could be on margins,” he said. “I think for us we’ve done a really good job at being honest and accurate in our projections. I would say that was our biggest luck.”

Spolansky said he potentially sees one more funding round in the future.

“Hopefully that is a growth round,” he said. “We’re working really hard to push toward profitability.”

Leaño added: “We see a company with an ability to remain focused on sustainable growth in the path to profitability. When assessing a product, we prioritize the fundamentals, and Mezcla excels in this regard.”

The company focuses its go-to-market strategy on natural retailers, natural conventional retailers, Amazon and its website.

“I like to think of it as walk before you run and make sure we win in those natural accounts, then natural conventional accounts and so forth,” he said. “It’s important for us to be omnichannel. People go buy us in the store and then they go on our website and want to buy us there, too. It’s important to give consumers that option.”

Women have been a large consumer group for the company.

“I do believe anyone could be our consumer,” he said. “Bars are a very open category and almost everyone eats bars. But to date, a majority of our consumers have been millennial females.”

Spolansky said he believes the company is currently on a path to profitability.

“Let’s get there (profitability), and then the options open up in terms of what we want to do and how we want to do it,” he said. “Our goal really is let’s be a self-reliant company.”

Spolansky said the additional funding has made the company even more thoughtful in its spending.

“(We’re) very thankful to have amazing investors on board,” he said. “Now we need to make sure we execute. That doesn’t mean it’s over, now we celebrate. I was just in Austin with the team last week and I said to them, ‘just because we raise money we spend less thoughtfully, now we spend more thoughtfully and now we have to be more careful what we do and how we do it. We want to make sure we’re good stewards of their capital and do well with their capital.’”

Spolansky said the company plans to follow its go-to-market strategy to scale its growth.

“It’s growth with probability focus,” he said. “We’re going to say no to accounts if we don’t think we can hit profitability somewhat quickly in those accounts. Our goal over the next few years is to hit profitability while also maintaining a decent rapid growth rate. Let’s continue to grow, but at the same time be thoughtful how we grow.”

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