Rapper Jay-Z continues to expand his growing business portfolio. In addition to becoming Hip Hop’s first billionaire, Hov’s Marcy Venture Partners recently led a $1 million investment into Partake Foods, a three-year-old startup company based in New Jersey.
Partake Foods is a black- owned company founded in 2016 by Denise Woodward. The former Coca-Cola national sales director got the idea for the company after her daughter was diagnosed with multiple food allergies, making it hard to find snacks that were healthy and tasty. Partake Foods is centered on making health-conscious food products.
Woodward relied on Kickstarter to fund Partake Foods, and sold cookies out of her car for six months while she met with store managers and customers.
Now Woodward’s products can be found in hundreds of stores.
“Our products can now be found in over 300 stores, and we expect to finish this year with a new pack offering in over 1,000 stores. We are so excited to collaborate with the MVP and Factory teams, as they both bring a wealth of knowledge in brand building and scaling consumer companies.”
The company’s current food products include sprouted grain chocolate mini cookies, double chocolate chip mini cookies, sweet potato millet mini cookies, and carrot oat mini cookies. All the products are dairy free, non-GMO, nut-free and soy-free.
Partake has landed other investors including The Factory, Backstage Capital, SoFi Venture, and Chuck Muth- an executive with meat alternative company, Beyond Meat.
“Partake has the ingredients to build a mass market brand: compelling values, a great tasting product, and a tenacious and experienced operator. We are honored to back Denise and the team and help grow their business,” said Larry Marcus Marcy Venture Products co-founder, and managing director.
Partake Food products can be found on Amazon.com, some Whole Foods stores, Wegmans, and independent natural food stores across the country.