Participated · Seed · Nov 2021

AKUA develops plant-based foods built around ocean-farmed kelp, with products including Kelp Jerky, Kelp Pasta and The Kelp Burger as its current hero product. The company was co-founded by Courtney Boyd Myers and Matthew Lebo and launched its first product in 2019. AKUA began direct-to-consumer sales in May and ships to all U.S. states except Alaska and Hawaii; it ran a food club that signed up 1,000 customers and has preorders from over 100 New York stores. The firm has soft-launched a kelp ground meat product and plans a kelp crab cake in Q2 2022. New funding will be used for R&D into additional alternative meat and plant-based seafood products, hiring, and ramping sales and marketing. AKUA positions its ingredient approach around whole-food, clean recipes (15 food or food-derived ingredients in the kelp burger) rather than heavily processed substitutes.