Startup food maker aces pitch contest, begins funding

LONGMONT — Future Fit Foods LLC won a pitch contest at last month’s Denver Startup Week and has begun to seek early funding to develop its line of soups, said CEO Paloma López.

López formally asked for $200,000. But while the Trout Tank pitch event draws from elements of ABC’s “Shark Tank,” it stops short of actual cash offers from judges or awards for winning.

It’s “meant to prepare companies for fundraising and create the meaningful connections that can lead to investment, rather than being a true clone” of the show said Morgan Alu, program and communications manager for the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce and Denver Metro Small Business Development Center, via email.

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“We don’t hold the investment discussions at the event,” Alu said.

The business groups host the pitch contest quarterly, with its final entry part of the city’s annual Denver Startup Week. About 20,000 people and 3,600 companies participated in Denver Startup Week in some form, said manager Chantel Allbee, also in an email.

López pitched in a Trout Tank focused on consumer packaged goods, besting 10 other hopefuls to get a final round of three, then taking the title in front of about a hundred viewers, Alu said.

“Paloma was amazing during the accelerator and the event, and we are rooting for her success,” Alu said.

Funding future

Future Fit Foods is beginning to seek funding.

It plans to raise $75,000 from friends and family in the first quarter of 2022 and another $100,000 in an angel round in 2023.

“We’re doing really well with customers and decided not to raise the money as soon as we thought,” she said. Capital investors, she said, want to see about $1 million in annual revenue before they buy in.

“We have some people who’ve already offered,” to back the company, López said. She said Trout Tank connected the company with some potential investors as well. She said the event was more about getting the word out and the value from a short-term accelerator course that participants took.

“Building a business, you want to get the word out, that you exist,” she said. “We’re learning as we go and making decisions to keep the business healthy without going into debt.”

López co-founded the company in November with sustainability consultant Sean Ansett; it began selling three flavors — Southern U.S., Southeast Asian and Pacific islands — online this past summer.

The pitch said funding in the next year or so will go to sales, social media, certifications, and research and development. Future Fit Foods sells its specially freeze-dried soups online and in some stores. It’s begun presenting its wares at the Fort Collins Farmers Market.

López thinks the company can nab about $2.1 million in revenue out of a $4.5 billion “shelf stable soups” market in the U.S. by 2025.

“That’s a really small slice of a really big market,” she said. She said Future Fit Foods has a good shot at it because its products weigh less than an ounce and “are suited to ecommerce,” which has been growing as people order more food from home.