So Good So You Lands $14.5M To Stay In Competitive Juice Market

So Good So You is expanding its footprint in retail stores and online after closing on $14.5 million in growth funding led by Prelude Growth Partners with participation from unnamed existing investors.

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Rita Katona and her husband, Eric Hall, co-founded the Minneapolis-based company in 2014 under the name, Juice So Good. It reorganized under the So Good Brand name in 2016. The company provides plant-based beverages that are cold-pressed with natural ingredients known to improve immune system health.

Katona declined to disclose total funding raised, however, she did say that this was the company’s largest funding to date. So Good So You will put the new capital to work hiring more talent to add to its 40-employee workforce, as well as investing in the community and brand.

“The refrigerated health shots category growth has been explosive, and our mission is to be the best in function and convenience,” Hall said in an interview.

The company has been profitable since mid-2019, but Katona told Crunchbase News that the new funding was crucial for keeping up with a competitive market.

“Being in the CPG beverage category, we need to grow at a certain rate or we won’t be around,” she added. “We are growing organically at a good rate, but once the category got hyper competitive, we wanted to have the appropriate resources in place to hold onto our market leadership.”

Katona and Hall said the juice shots and refrigerated shots market didn’t exist four year ago, so there is a roadmap for new products and categories. Depending on the research firm, the market is valued at anywhere from $80 million to $340 million, Hall said.

In the past 18 months, So Good So You has grown more than 380 percent. The co-founders see more of the same growth to happen in the next few years due to the existing trends of proactive health management and food as medicine, Hall said.

In addition, the global pandemic created a trend that “leapfrogged into the mainstream” and consumers have embraced it, Katona added. So Good So You wellness shots are available in more than 4,500 stores in 47 states.

“We are exploring some new channels, however, North America will be a focus for quite some time because there is a tremendous amount of runway in the U.S. and our current channels,” she said. “If you look at total grocery stores, we don’t have 50 percent penetration yet, and the drug and convenience stores and clubs are channels we haven’t tapped into yet.”

As part of the investment, Neda Daneshzadeh and Alicia Sontag, both co-founders and managing partners at Prelude Growth, will join the So Good So You board.

Daneshzadeh said in a written statement that Prelude’s own consumer research shows that So Good So You’s products are resonating with millennials and receiving high repeat rates.

“The wellness shot category is growing exponentially due to consumers’ rising demand for convenient, functional product offerings with clean, plant-based ingredients,” she added. “The differentiated taste profile of So Good So You appeals to everyday Americans who are looking for functional wellness.”

Illustration: Li-Anne Dias