37 Exploding Food and Beverage Startups (2023)
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They might not grab headlines like SaaS startups, consumer tech companies, or e-commerce juggernauts.
But food and beverage startups are every bit as creative and exciting.
By leveraging technology, these startups have created new markets in everything from gourmet delicacies to time-saving food delivery services.
Discover some of the hottest startups in the food and beverage space below.
1. Liquid Death
5-year search growth: 2125%
Search growth status: Exploding
Year founded: 2017
Location: Los Angeles, California
Funding: $200.6M (Series D)
What they do: Liquid Death takes a unique approach to marketing its canned water by targeting the younger demographic with edgy, bold branding that stands out from traditional water brands. This tallboy canned water brand helps customers “murder their thirst.” The company also will launch new flavored sparkling waters and iced teas.
2. Meati
5-year search growth: 267%
Search growth status: Exploding
Year founded: 2016
Location: Boulder, Colorado
Funding: $274.5M (Series C)
What they do: Developing high-protein, sustainable, and environmentally friendly meat alternatives, Meati is pushing the boundaries in the plant-based meat industry. All Meati products are whole-food protein meals made completely from mushroom root.
3. NotCo
5-year search growth: 500%
Search growth status: Exploding
Year founded: 2015
Location: Santiago, Chile
Funding: $433M (Series D)
What they do: NotCo uses the Giuseppe artificial intelligence program to create plant-based food products. NotMilk, NotChicken, and NotBeef taste and feel like animal-derived counterparts but all ingredients are 100% plant-based. Giuseppe has quickly taken Notco from start-up to unicorn status.
4. Mouth
5-year search growth: 52%
Search growth status: Exploding
Year founded: 2012
Location: Brooklyn, NY
Funding: $8.4M (Series A)
What they do: Mouth can be considered a crossover between Etsy and Goldbelly. In other words, they serve up crowdsourced, homemade foods ranging from cheese to chocolate. Mouth also offers subscription boxes to customers who can’t get enough of their gourmet gifts.
Customers have three choices: curated gift boxes made by Mouth, subscription boxes with treats (like craft pickles), or building your own gift box with handpicked elements.
5. Sophie’s Kitchen
5-year search growth: 0%
Search growth status: Peaked
Year founded: 2010
Location: Dover, Delaware
Funding: $5.6M (Series Unknown)
What they do: Sophie’s Kitchen makes vegan seafood alternatives. Their hits include shrimp, crab cakes, fish fillets, and smoked salmon. As one of the few vegan seafood companies to hit the major supermarkets, Sophie’s has something of a first mover advantage in the space.
6. WildWay
5-year search growth: -30%
Search growth status: Regular
Year founded: 2014
Location: San Antonio, Texas
Funding: Undisclosed (Non-Equity Assistance)
What they do: Wildway takes pride in their all-natural, good-for-you range of snacks. They’ve kept their product line lean so far, focusing on Keto Hot Cereal, Snack Mixes, and Grain-Free Granola as their signature products.
Wildway’s been featured in major publications like Women’s Health and Paleo Magazine.
7. Creator
5-year search growth: -55%
Search growth status: Peaked
Year founded: 2009
Location: San Francisco, California
Funding: $18.7M (Convertible Note)
What they do: Creator out of SF has come up with an entirely new concept: preparing customized burgers cooked by a proprietary robot. Creator’s machine handles every step of the burger creating process. The bread is sliced to order, cheese is grated directly onto the bun before melting, and patties are carefully seasoned.
Taking humans out of the equation has allowed Creator to pour most of their budget into food. Which has resulted in quality burgers at affordable prices.
8. Brewbird
5-year search growth: 500%
Search growth status: Exploding
Year founded: 2012
Location: San Mateo, California
Funding: Undisclosed (Series A)
What they do: Brewbird is aiming to build a technology platform that “scales the specialty coffee experience”, providing a marketplace for entrepreneurial roasters to sell their coffee through Brewbird.
Brewbird’s signature product is a single-serve coffee brewer that uses whole bean pods. Through Brewbird’s marketplace, the independent coffee roaster will be able to sell their prized product in a single-serve format. Single-serve coffee is an enormous market. As of 2019, 42% of Americans own a single-serve coffee machine.
9. Rheal
5-year search growth: -36%
Search growth status: Regular
Year founded: 2017
Location: Newcastle, United Kingdom
Funding: $1.2M (Equity Crowdfunding)
What they do: Rheal is a food startup that offers plant-based, ready-to-eat meals delivered straight to customers' doors. Their meals are made with sustainably-sourced ingredients and are free from dairy, gluten, and refined sugar. They aim to provide healthy and convenient options for those with busy lifestyles who want to prioritize their health and the environment.
10. Hapi Drinks
5-year search growth: 700%
Search growth status: Peaked
Year founded: 2011
Location: Austin, Texas
Funding: $2.4M (Series Unknown)
What they do: Hapi Drinks is targeting one of America’s greatest health dangers: childhood obesity. The CDC estimates the prevalence of obesity in children is around 19.7%. Hapi Drinks noticed the problem and their solution is a line of sugar-free drinks with flavors comparable to a Capri Sun or Sunny Delight.
Instead of simply making the drinks sugar-free and leaving it there, Hapi also loads their drinks with Vitamin C (around 90% daily value) and uses only all-natural ingredients.
11. Rule Breaker
5-year search growth: 33%
Search growth status: Peaked
Year founded: 2015
Location: Brooklyn, NY
Funding: $114K (Equity Crowdfunding)
What they do: Rule Breaker is a twist on the classic cookie and brownie. Instead of dairy-packed, gluten-rich sweet treats, Rule Breaker has rolled out a line of vegan treats that are also gluten-free. For every bag of Rule Breaker Bites purchased, one is donated to a food bank to help with food insecurity.
Rule Breaker was also featured on Shark Tank, the Today Show, and numerous mainstream publications.
12. Pared
5-year search growth: 38%
Search growth status: Regular
Year founded: 2015
Location: San Francisco, California
Funding: $28M (Series B)
What they do: Pared is a matching network that pairs food and beverage workers with restaurants that need assistance. The company is a resource for both chefs that needs staff and food workers that need jobs.
Billing itself as a sort of Linkedin for the food and beverage industry, Pared lets users build a comprehensive profile that highlights work history and experiences, industry connections and recommendations, and relevant content and industry job openings.
13. Flaviar
5-year search growth: -11%
Search growth status: Peaked
Year founded: 2012
Location: New York, New York
Funding: $13.9M (Series Unknown)
What they do: Not surprisingly, alcohol sales skyrocketed over the pandemic. Flaviar emerged as a spirits club allowing members to try a range of different liquors. Through their subscription service, members are able to try expensive liquors that might normally be too pricey to buy without tasting first.
14. HydroMATE
5-year search growth: 200%
Search growth status: Peaked
Year founded: 2019
Location: Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Funding: Undisclosed
What they do: HydroMATE is a water bottle manufacturer that produces smart water bottles designed to help people stay hydrated throughout the day. The bottles are equipped with sensors that track the amount of water consumed and provide reminders to drink more water, helping to promote healthy habits and prevent dehydration.
15. Bevi
5-year search growth: 7%
Search growth status: Regular
Year founded: 2013
Location: Boston, Massachusetts
Funding: $130.3M (Series D)
What they do: Bevi is a beverage startup. They’ve created the Bevi Bottleless Water Dispensers, which are essentially commercial grade office ready smart dispensers for sparkling (or plain) water in the office.
Dispensing is done entirely through a smartphone app with no touching of dirty screens required. Bevi has smart internet monitoring to make sure flavor supplies remain stocked and alert the office manager when anything is wrong with it.
A large Series D round means that Bevi can get a headstart on modernizing the outdated office vending machine and water fountains, and make them relics of the past.
16. Remedy Organics
5-year search growth: 2800%
Search growth status: Exploding
Year founded: 2014
Location: Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey
Funding: Undisclosed (Non-Equity Assistance)
What they do: One of ten companies that PepsiCo sees as the future of food and beverage, NJ-based Remedy makes plant based juices and smoothies that are packed with popular ingredients like cocoa, MCT oil, dates and more. Sleek packaging and thoughtful, focused product lines also helps drive Remedy’s growing market share.
17. Thistle
5-year search growth: -11%
Search growth status: Regular
Year founded: 2013
Location: San Francisco, California
Funding: $17M (Series B)
What they do: Thistle is a DTC subscription offering healthy salads and vegan or vegetarian options. With a similar business model to Freshly and other meal delivery providers, Thistle has taken the angle of being the healthy go-to choice in the marketplace.
In addition to their healthy meal offerings, Thistle also makes their own cold-pressed juices that can be added to a meal plan or delivered individually.
18. Dash Water
5-year search growth: 380%
Search growth status: Exploding
Year founded: 2017
Location: London, England
Funding: $13M (Series A)
What they do: Dash Water is a sustainable beverage startup that produces sparkling water infused with an assortment of fruit and vegetable flavors. The company aims to reduce food waste by utilizing imperfect produce that would otherwise go to waste, and their packaging is 100% recyclable.
19. Bohana
5-year search growth: 175%
Search growth status: Peaked
Year founded: 2018
Location: Boston, Massachusetts
Funding: Undisclosed (Seed)
What they do: Bohana’s entire business is built around one ingredient and one product: the popped water lily seed. One of the recent top health food trends across the country, water lily seeds are native to Asia and are considered a superfood.
Bohana capitalized on this barely known seed and turned it into a healthy alternative to popcorn.
20. Cozymeal
5-year search growth: 76%
Search growth status: Regular
Year founded: 2014
Location: San Francisco, California
Funding: Undisclosed (Series A)
What they do: Cozymeal has dug out a niche in the food and beverage space by providing a marketplace that matches local chefs with teams or individuals who are looking for memorable cooking classes. Users can choose which city they want to take a class in, what kind of dish (risotto or Spanish tapas or sushi) they want to learn how to cook, and then book.
During the pandemic, Cozymeal pivoted to offering select cooking classes online. Everything from mixology to whisky tasting is still on offer for company team-building activities or the individual connoisseur.
21. Snackpass
5-year search growth: 1000%
Search growth status: Exploding
Year founded: 2017
Location: San Francisco, California
Funding: $95.6M (Series B)
What they do: Snackpass brings quick-serve restaurants online. Customers can pre-order takeout at local restaurants with no markups or hidden fees. Menus also automatically update with new pricing and listings.
The social aspect of the app has caused its popularity to explode. Users earn points with each order for future discounts. They can also share and gift points to their friends on the platform, incentivizing users to track their friend’s activities and share rewards.
22. Hungryroot
5-year search growth: 144%
Search growth status: Peaked
Year founded: 2015
Location: New York, New York
Funding: $75.4M (Series C)
What they do: Hungryroot is a meal planning and online grocery startup. Customers can access customizable meal plans, recipes, and grocery add-ons to automate their shopping.
Customers take a quick look when they sign up and get matched with a personalized plan based on family size, dietary restrictions, etc. Plans start at $65+ per delivery.
23. Tovala
5-year search growth: 650%
Search growth status: Peaked
Year founded: 2015
Location: Chicago, Illinois
Funding: $68.6M (Series C)
What they do: Tovala is a food-tech startup that delivers fresh meals every week. The twist is these meals can be cooked in one minute using the Tovala Smart Oven.
The Smart Oven is programmed with cook settings for each meal type. Customers who sign up for meal delivery save $200 on the oven.
24. Misfits Market
5-year search growth: 2500%
Search growth status: Peaked
Year founded: 2018
Location: Pennsauken, New Jersey
Funding: $526.5M (Series C)
What they do: Misfits Market is a subscription box startup that cuts the grocery bill and only ships organic, locally sourced products. The online grocery store works directly with farmers to reduce food waste by bringing hard-to-find fruits and vegetables into customers' homes.
25. Eat Just
5-year search growth: 74%
Search growth status: Peaked
Year founded: 2011
Location: San Francisco, California
Funding: $465M (Grant)
What they do: Eat Just is a food technology company developing alternative egg and cultivated meat products. The recipes are high in protein, 100% plant-based, non-GMO, and cholesterol-free. Eat Just’s goal is to reduce waste by using ingredients that use less water, less land, and emit less CO2 than traditional animal products.
26. Vinovest
5-year search growth: 1500%
Search growth status: Peaked
Year founded: 2019
Location: Culver City, California
Funding: Undisclosed (Series A)
What they do: Vinovest is a startup that allows investors to purchase and trade shares of fine wine as an alternative investment. With Vinovest, users can build a portfolio of diverse wine investments, and the company handles all aspects of buying, storing, insuring, and selling the wine on their behalf.
27. Licious
5-year search growth: 73%
Search growth status: Regular
Year founded: 2015
Location: Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
Funding: $489.9M (Series F)
What they do: Licious is an India-based seafood and meat delivery startup offering pre-packed items to customers’ doors in 90-120 minutes. Every product is handpicked and the Licious motto is they only sell meat they would eat themselves. The company aims to make meat purchasing in India easier, safer, and more hygienic.
28. Banza
5-year search growth: 34%
Search growth status: Regular
Year founded: 2014
Location: Detroit, Michigan
Funding: $28.8M (Series B)
What they do: Banza is a chickpea-based pasta startup. Their pasta is higher in protein and fiber and lower in net carbs than traditional pasta. Banza’s goal is to encourage people to eat plant-based diets to improve health and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
29. Kitopi
5-year search growth: 625%
Search growth status: Exploding
Year founded: 2018
Location: Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Funding: $804M (Series C)
What they do: Kitopi is a Kitchen as a Service (KaaS) platform that allows restaurants to get closer to customers. Kitopi is the Middle East’s biggest cloud kitchen company, preparing home-delivery foods for 100+ different eateries. Restaurants can scale their operations using Kitopi in new cities for a fraction of the price.
30. Frizata
5-year search growth: 2400%
Search growth status: Peaked
Year founded: 2019
Location: Sao Paulo, Brazil
Funding: $9.5M (Undisclosed)
What they do: Frizata is a plant-based meal delivery service that offers chef-crafted, nutritious, and delicious meals made from natural ingredients. The company focuses on sustainability and sources its ingredients locally, minimizing its carbon footprint.
31. WeCook
5-year search growth: 93%
Search growth status: Regular
Year founded: 2013
Location: Dorval, Quebec, Canada
Funding: $44.2M (Series C)
What they do: The busy professional who likes to eat healthily has found their perfect match with WeCook. The nutritious meal delivery company brings healthy prepared and ready-to-eat meals directly to customers' doorsteps. The company focuses on using locally sourced, all-natural ingredients.
32. Snackmagic
5-year search growth: 600%
Search growth status: Peaked
Year founded: 2020
Location: Long Island City, New York
Funding: $15M (Series A)
What they do: With their personalized snacking experience, Snackmagic allows users to customize a snack box filled with their favorite treats, from healthy to indulgent. Snackmagic snacks are specially sourced from around the world and won’t be found in a traditional grocery store.
33. Poppy Handcrafted Popcorn
5-year search growth: 0%
Search growth status: Peaked
Year founded: 2014
Location: Asheville, North Carolina
Funding: $3M (Series A)
What they do: Handmade and crafted with love, Poppy Handcrafted Popcorn offers a range of unique, gourmet flavors that elevate traditional popcorn snacking. All products are all-natural, non-GMO, with no artificial ingredients. Poppy Handcrafted Popcorn prides itself on sourcing local ingredients and making and making their popcorn with love in small batches.
34. Goldbelly
Search growth status: Peaked
Year founded: 2012
Location: New York, New York
Funding: $133.1M (Series C)
What they do: As a heavy display marketer and retargeting advertiser, users might be familiar with Goldbelly from popular social platforms. Goldbelly’s business model is simple: ship iconic dishes from famous restaurants around the U.S. directly to your doorstep.
Lobster Rolls from Maine’s finest, Philly Cheesesteaks from Philadelphia, bagels from Brooklyn. Goldbelly scouts for the most popular joints and then offer up their most popular menu item to hungry consumers.
With over $100M in funding, investors seem to love their careful curation and food offerings.
35. Once Upon a Farm
5-year search growth: 6%
Search growth status: Regular
Year founded: 2017
Location: Berkeley, California
Funding: $116.8M (Series D)
What they do: Once Upon a Farm is an infants and children farm-to-fridge food startup. They sell portable cold-pressed baby food pouches made with organic fruits, vegetables, and superfoods. The idea is to give babies more nutritious foods while making the feeding process easier.
36. Remilk
5-year search growth: 64%
Search growth status: Peaked
Year founded: 2019
Location: Tel Aviv, Israel
Funding: $131.3M (Series B)
What they do: Remilk is a milk protein startup that uses a fermentation process to produce dairy-free milk proteins, offering a more sustainable milk alternative without compromising on taste or texture. The microbial fermentation crafts an identical dairy product without harming cows or using lactose, hormones, and antibiotics.
37. Copper Cow Coffee
5-year search growth: 625%
Search growth status: Peaked
Year founded: 2017
Location: Los Angeles, California
Funding: $11.5M (Series A)
What they do: Copper Cow Coffee is reintroducing the way we think about Vietnamese-style pour-over coffee. Every coffee or latte is made with 100% natural ingredients and delivers a smooth and rich taste.
Copper Cow was famously spotted on Shark Tank. They developed single-serve filters that sit inside the coffee mug to create a unique coffee-pouring experience from anywhere.
Conclusion
The future looks bright in the food and beverage space, with these startups going a long way to proving how tech can be combined with traditional space to create spectacular results.
Food delivery, sourcing world-class dishes and shipping everything direct to doorsteps are just a few examples of what is sure to be a booming sector moving forward.
