The revenue results of the company in the year 2021, will be used as a reference point for the company's product line.
Laura Modi told me that she expected $4 million in revenue for the year, but ended the year with $18 million.
She said that it was pretty extraordinary and that they had hit product-market fit. Parents have been waiting for this product.
Modi and Sarah started the company to develop a European-style infant formula that was manufactured in the U.S. and was going after customers who were getting formula on the black.
Its beginnings had a big learning lesson. During its first year of operation, the company voluntarily recalled its product due to product labeling errors. Modi told me that the recall was quite a harrowing journey.
Laura Modi is the CEO of Bobbie. The image is called "Bobbie."
There is no room for error in an industry that is heavily regulated. It taught me that women are not good ass. To watch how we handled it with calm, humility and vulnerability, and then stood up and said let's keep going. We were confident in the product.
The infant formula market is expected to be $103 billion by the end of the decade. Modi cited statistics that show 21% of parents plan to buy online in the next year, and said that Bobbie is the only direct-to-consumer formula company currently. The shortage of infant formula was not helped by the recall in February of Similac, which has a large footprint of the infant formula market.
We will have to wait and see what happens, but Bobbie and others are filling the gap. ByHeart's new infant formula brand will launch via its website and be priced at $39, which is the equivalent of 46 four-ounce bottles.
The company's formula was recently FDA registered and is derived from its own manufacturing and R&D. The formula is said to be the first in the US to include organic whole milk.
The Clean Label Project awarded both Bobbie and ByHeart the purity award.
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Helaina is a company that teaches yeast cells to become manufacturing hubs, so they can make almost identical human milk products. It announced $20 million in Series A financing last November and is currently working to get FDA approval and commercialization.
Even though there was a bit of a hiccup with the FDA, Bobbie hit the ground running again. It raised 15 million dollars in a Series A round in June of last year. Modi expects the company to grow four times in revenue this year at a pace of about 600% month over month in growth that is not slowing down.
Modi and Hardy saw an opportunity to invest now in the future of the company and its next generation of products that will take more than five years to come to fruition.
The company today announced $50 million in a Series B round that was led by Park West and included existing investors, as well as a group of over 100 new investors that are part of the AirAngels syndicate.
Modi was not able to reveal the company's valuation, but she said it has tripled from where it was a year ago. She said the new round includes venture capital and inventory debt and gives her a total of $72 million of funding to date.
The new funding will be put into the new formula products. Perrigo is its manufacturing partner. The launch of Bobbie Labs, a virtual laboratory that will fund infant feeding research and innovation, is one of the ways that Bobbie will invest in product development and R&D.
Bobbie is thinking outside the box when it comes to additional investment in the company. Last year, it created The MotherLode so that women and its customers could invest in a company that serves them.
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