On this weekly series, CNBC takes a take a look at corporations that made the inaugural Disruptor 50 list, 10 years later.
Disruptive corporations have shaped the ever-growing consumer packaged goods industry lately, from the rise in plant-based products from corporations like Beyond Meat and Unattainable Foods to an increased deal with personal care products from CNBC Disruptor 50 corporations like Beautycounter and Dollar Shave Club.
Consumer behaviors, demands, and expectations have began to flip the industry as well, with shoppers willing to go well beyond a food market shelf to seek out a product they need to buy. The viability of companies built around direct-to-consumer, e-commerce, and social media has only further accelerated that.
In actual fact, the highest 20 consumer packaged goods corporations are estimated to grow five times slower than their smaller category competitors, in keeping with an Accenture report. Add the expansion of the category on top of that – overall consumer packaged goods volume sales grew 4.3% in 2021 – and the emphasis on finding the following big thing has grow to be much more essential for corporations and investors within the space, in addition to the need for founders with those ideas to access funding.
CircleUp, whose start as a crowdfunding platform that connected accredited investors with food and beverage start-ups landed it on the inaugural CNBC Disruptor 50 list, has looked to evolve alongside the industry. Having already launched its own early-stage investment fund called CircleUp Growth Partners and a credit business that has helped it support greater than 500 different brands, its next step is to open its data platform as much as the industry to further facilitate more investment.
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Danny Mitchell, recently named CircleUp CEO after previously serving as CFO, said that with how quickly the industry is evolving on top of corporations like Amazon and Instacart changing how consumers are purchasing products on top of social media platforms, the importance of information on this space is just growing.
“You could have point-of-sale data, or something focused on social media, but you wish that holistic view to get a real picture of the category, the trends and the categories, in addition to individual corporations,” Mitchell said. “The Fortune 100 corporations on this space are concerned about their existing brands being cannibalized by up-and-coming brands that you’ll have never even known about or went from 1,000 followers to one million followers on Instagram in six months.”
That has also meant staying on top of flavor and ingredient trends with consumers perhaps more willing to try recent products than ever before. Mitchell pointed to Asian-inspired sparkling water brand Sanzo, which CircleUp Growth Partners led a $10 million Series A round in February and which features flavors like lychee, calamansi lime, and yuzu ginger.
“You are asking these open-ended questions like is an ingredient as popular today because it was three years ago and even three months?” Mitchell said. “These are the sorts of things that we’re attempting to always analyze and that we will provide clients.” Mitchell said Helio, the information platform, should appeal to those Fortune 100 brands attempting to stay ahead of the curve with recent products while also searching for possible acquisitions, investment firms, and even smaller corporations searching for market insights as they grow revenue.
Answering those varieties of questions will likely grow to be much more essential as concerns over inflation and a possible recession heighten the deal with consumer spending.
Mitchell said that he believes consumer staples will proceed to perform higher than peer corporations and that lots of the early-stage corporations that CircleUp is drawing attention to “have product fit but generally have revenue,” making a few of those bets a bit less dangerous.
“It is a difficult time but I feel that the patron space will perform higher and the opportunities in M&A, and from a bottom-line return from an investment standpoint, are higher than the opposite sectors that we face,” he said.
While CircleUp is hoping to facilitate more activity within the CPG space, the corporate itself doesn’t have any plans to enter the capital markets this coming 12 months, Mitchell said, adding that he expects to the corporate to “start taking a look at potential fundraising” next 12 months.
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