Bloomberg Línea — Brazilian direct-to-consumer frozen ready meals startup Liv Up has received a 26-million-reais ($4.87 million) investment from the corporate venture capital arm of Brazil’s livestock company Minerva Foods (BEEF3).
The company’s valuation remains flat since the 36-million-reais ($180 million) Series D funding led by Lofoten Capital (a vehicle owned by Marcos Amino, who was manager of the hedge fund Discovery Capital) in June 2021, and which also included Kaszek and Globo Ventures, Globo’s investment arm, as well as ThornTree Capital Partners.
A person familiar with the goings-on in Brazil’s venture capital industry told Bloomberg Línea under condition of anonymity that Amino had lost almost all of his capital investment in Liv Up and Loggi, “companies that required cash and had a very short runway.”
In September last year, Liv Up announced its first Series D extension with 50 million reais ($9.4 million) with Globo Ventures. On reopening the latest round for Minerva’s minority check, the total raised by Liv Up in Series D was 256 million reais ($48 million).
A Series D extension means that the terms of the investment are the same as the initial funding, with the exact liquidation preference multiple - that is, how much the investor will receive in the event of an exit (sale or IPO), and how much earlier that investor will receive the amount compared to other shareholders - plus equal anti-dilution clauses.
“Since the beginning of 2022, anticipating a challenging year, we have quickly adapted our strategy to give full focus to operational efficiency and channel diversification to continue growing our sales sustainably. We now see that the team’s hard work has paid off and brought investors with a long-term vision very much aligned with ours,” said Victor Santos, founder and CEO of Liv Up, in a press release.
Liv Up operates in 10 Brazilian states and 40 cities, o
ffering ready-made meals through its website and app. In business for six years, the company has around 500 employees - after cutting 15% of its staff in February, as Startups reported.
The food prepared in Liv Up’s ‘dark’ kitchens comes from organic and family farmers. The company says it has partnerships with 30 Brazilian small farmers and in addition to frozen meals, it offers salads, wraps and pizza delivery.
The startup said it intends to leverage Minerva Foods’ business partnership base to accelerate its expansion, in addition to using the company’s operating history and knowledge of the beef chain to bring more efficiency to the operation.