Personalized sports nutrition company Gainful has raised a $7.5 million Series A funding after seeing its revenues more than double over the past year.
The funding round was co-led by BrandProject and Courtside Ventures with additional participation by AF Ventures, Round 13 Capital, Barrel Ventures, and the founder of global sports agency Polaris Sports.
Gainful, which recently added a hydration drink mixes line to its core protein portfolio, extracts customer data regarding their exercise habits, dietary preference, and fitness goals through online personalization quizzes and proprietary algorithms, and then offers them tailored products via subscription.
“We’re thrilled to be co-leading the latest round in Gainful,” partner at Courtside Ventures, Deepen Parikh, said in a statement. “The incredible team at Gainful has and continues to dispel the notion that sports nutrition products are only for those people who live in the gym. Rather, they are focused on the everyday fitness enthusiasts who want to take something that helps them achieve their goals but is personalized specifically for them.”
The funding comes as Gainful has been able to capitalize on some of the most popular consumer trends, including plant-based food that is currently valued at $21.18 billion globally.
Gainful Co-founder Eric Wu noted how plant-based options are not only emerging within the broader CPG sector but also in the personalized nutrition category, which is expected to reach new heights by 2025 with an estimated $16.4 billion sales, according to data from Markets And Markets.
“Plant-base is definitely huge,” Wu said. “We do have a lot of customers, who opt into having purely plant-based products: our hydration product is plant-based, and we have blends that source from pea protein and brown rice protein.”
The Gainful team has outlined what they believe a “very aggressive roadmap” for 2021 with new flavors of core products and more complimentary products expected to launch with the support from their recently raised capital.
“Suffice it to say, we’re targeting plenty more growth than we saw between 2019 and 2020, and that’s going to be bolstered by this incredible marketing and brand activations,” Wu said.
Photo courtesy Gainful
