Flying Eze and its trusted partners need your
permission to store and access cookies, unique identifiers, personal data, and information on your
browsing behaviour on this device. This only applies to Flying Eze. You don’t have to accept, and
you
can change your preferences at any time via the Privacy Options link at the bottom of this screen. If
you don’t accept, you may will still see some personalised ads and content.
Cookies, device identifiers, or other information can be stored or accessed on
your device for the purposes presented to you.
Ads and content can be personalised based on a profile. More data can be added
to better personalise ads and content. Ad and content performance can be
measured. Insights about audiences who saw the ads and content can be derived.
Data can be used to build or improve user experience, systems and software.
Precise geolocation and information about device characteristics can be used.
If you don’t want to accept, please select Read More option below where you can also see how and
why your data may be used. You can also see where we or our partners claim a legitimate interest and
object to the processing of your data.
Founded Andrew Black, who previously co-founded Virgin Mobile Canada and served as president of LEGO Americas, BrandProject previously invested from a $12 million fund tied BrandProject Studio, where the money is just a small part of what’s being offered — apparently six of the firm’s eight team members are entirely focused on supporting startups, often serving as de facto CTOs, CFOs and CMOs.
With the new BrandProject Capital fund, the firm will be able to make larger investments in (somewhat) more mature companies. Black estimated that the new fund will be writing checks of between $1 million and $3 million; the goal is for half of the deals to be new investments, while the other half consists of follow-on investments in startups from BrandProject Studio.
“We’re going to be supporting the same type of businesses out of Studio or Capital, but with Studio, nothing’s too early for us — we’re all about team, team, team,” said Partner Hayden Williams. “But if it’s a Capital deal, we’re going to look for some evidence that something working, even if it’s a small scale.”
The focus will continue to be direct-to-consumer brands, and although the pandemic has led to tremendous e-commerce growth, Black said it hasn’t changed the BrandProject strategy.
Image Credits: BrandProject
“We haven’t adjusted our investment focus at all because of COVID,” he said. “We’ve always invested behind categories, brands and segments that we just think the world needs.”
At that point, Freshly had only raised friends-and-family funding, and Wystrach admitted, “We would have taken a check from anyone.” But he said he was lucky that Bhatti liked the food and the firm decided to invest, with Black becoming an interim co-CEO, Bhatti serving as interim CTO and Partner Andrew Bridge serving as an interim CMO.
“What I loved about BrandProject is that they never came in and told us what kind of business we’re building,” he continued. “It was never a case where they said, ‘You need to do this.’ It was our business, and they were team members in helping us build the business.”
To illustrate the idea behind the new fund, Wystrach compared the investment ecosystem to the U.S. schools: “Where Andrew and the team come in, they’re K through 8 or maybe K through 6, they’re very hands on … With the new fund, maybe they’re moving to middle school.”