The benefits of clean eating are plentiful and include improved heart and brain health, weight control, stronger immune system, and increased energy levels just to name a few. But with our busy schedules, it’s often difficult to actually eat clean. This NYC startup makes it easier. Sakara Life provides a plant-based, completely organic nutrition service that’s ready-to-eat. Rather than building a simple meal delivery service, the company takes a holistic approach to nutrition by integrating modern science, ancient healing practices, and natural remedies into its offering, viewing “food as medicine”. Sakara also provides a growing set of functional snacks, supplements, and educational content to support the end-to-end customer journey focused on achieving full nutritional wellness. A weekly subscription consisting of 3 meals a day for 5 days starts at $70/day.
AlleyWatch caught up with Cofounders and Co-CEOs Danielle DuBoise and Whitney Tingle to learn more about the inspiration for the business, the company’s expanding product offering, building a CPG brand beyond meal kits, the company’s latest funding, which brings the total funding raised to $19.8M, and much, much more.
Who were your investors and how much did you raise?
Sakara raises $15M in Series B funding from One Better Ventures, Silas Capital, and Annox Capital.
Tell us about the product or service that Sakara Life offers.
Sakara is the future of nutritional wellness and preventative healthcare. The brand offers a wide array of wellness solutions ranging from its signature Nutrition Program with ready-made nutritionally-designed meals delivered nationwide, and more than 30 products from functional snacks to supplements that use the best of modern science and nature to deliver results in products you can trust. They also offer editorial content where followers can learn about the science and spirit behind the Sakara lifestyle through the Sakara Life Podcast and S-Life Magazine.
What inspired the start of Sakara Life?
Sakara was created out of our personal needs – we both struggled from life stressors wreaking havoc on our health and this food and nutrition system was the medicine that transformed our lives. Now, we have made it our mission to share the tools needed to take your health into your own hands, feel really good in your body, and create the life you desire. Your Sakara Life.
How is Sakara Life different?
Sakara Life is a nutrition program and lifestyle, first and foremost. Our nutritionally-designed meals serve as just one of the tools we’ve created to enable our clients to live their best, healthiest lives.
Our Nutrition Program provides fresh, organic, plant-based meals and products that follow Sakara’s proprietary nutrition philosophy and are focused on nourishment of the gut microbiome, balancing blood sugar, and flooding the body with an abundance of nutrients needed to function at its best, not on restriction. Sakara doesn’t follow trends, but rather merges ancient healing wisdom with modern nutrition science to make up the core of the Sakara Nutrition Philosophy including pillars such as ‘Eat Your Water,’ ‘No Calorie Counting,’ and ‘Nutrient Density.’ We’ve pioneered the concept of ‘food as medicine’ and infused this groundbreaking philosophy into the zeitgeist as it is understood today. Sakara’s numerous industry-first moments have cemented the brand’s identity as wellness’ premiere plant-based and first-to-market nutrition authority.
What market does Sakara Life target and how big is it?
Sakara is a solution for anyone looking to take their health into their own hands, feel better in their body — whether mentally, physically, or emotionally– and experience transformation. That being said, we currently focus our marketing efforts towards women who we see as the “CEO of the household” – typically making health & wellness decisions on behalf of the whole family. While our business started in NYC and expanded to LA, we are now seeing the most growth in non-coastal markets and we’ll continue to focus on bringing our nutrition to people in areas of the country with less access to organic, plant-rich products. The U.S. wellness industry as a whole is currently valued at $3.31 billion this year and is expected to reach $4.26 billion dollars in 2026. With the expansion of their product offerings, Sakara will be able to offer solutions to more people at different price points, even further expanding their market and target demographic.
What’s your business model?
We are a CPG business providing solutions to our consumers’ biggest health problems. Those solutions include our ready-to-eat nutrition program, functional snacks, supplements, and education. We hope to continue expanding our toolkit in the future to meet our evolving customer needs, habits, and lifestyle.
All our products are available for nationwide delivery with an option for subscription.
How has COVID-19 impacted the business?
As a digital first, direct-to-consumer business, we are fortunate that COVID-19 did not have a dramatic impact on our business. It expanded our target market as more people are now aware and educated on the important role nutrition and self-care play into our health and immunity. Because of this, we have continued to grow steadily during the pandemic as an essential service providing support for our community at a time when their health was critical.
What was the funding process like?
We have known our new Board Chair John Replogle of One Better Ventures for many years– someone we respected and wanted to work with. We’ve really been waiting until our business was at the right inflection point to work together. He has a long track record of growing mission-driven, “better for you” CPG businesses with a focus on sustainability. Our process was very targeted as we knew we only wanted investors like John who truly believe in our mission.
What are the biggest challenges that you faced while raising capital?
When the “meal kit” trend kicked off, it paved the way for people to feel comfortable getting food through the mail, but also resulted in people thinking that Sakara was simply a meal delivery service – when it actually couldn’t be further from the truth. Sakara was created using cutting-edge, modern science and ancient healing practices, allowing us to be the highest quality nutrition system on the market. Our program is designed to change your health while being ready to eat. The only similarity to meal delivery, is the function of food through the mail, but not the product or purpose of why people buy it. We had to work hard to get investors who were mostly male, hadn’t tried our product before, or didn’t know how popular Sakara is to understand our vision for the future. Once they had a shift in mentality, they saw the huge opportunity ahead of us and how Sakara is changing the world when it comes to preventative healthcare. Sakara is food as medicine. As a profitable business that was already growing, we sought out the specific investors we’ve brought on because we knew they believed in our mission and could add value to our business, outside of the money they put in.
What factors about your business led your investors to write the check?
Sakara is and has always been a mission-driven company. Our promise to our customers is to provide them with tools to transform their lives, from the inside out. Our investors not only share our vision, they also believe that mission-driven businesses are the ones with the greatest staying power.
What are the milestones you plan to achieve in the next six months?
We have always had a close connection with our clients, but intend to further deepen that connection to gain consumer insights to drive our innovation process. Our goal is to create products that harness the power of plants (the best of science and nature) to provide effective and truly healthy solutions that get to the root cause of our clients’ struggles — whether that’s gut health or fine lines & wrinkles, if there is a natural solution that actually works, we want to provide it to our clients. We will continue to deepen our brand awareness in key markets, launch additional products at a variety of price points that add value to our clients’ lives, bring on new team members to help us achieve our goals, and improve our UX through our new app & other tech upgrades.
What advice can you offer companies in New York that do not have a fresh injection of capital in the bank?
We didn’t start Sakara with money in the bank. And we didn’t fund it off of personal finances either. We bootstrapped it off of hustle and hard work. Obviously, not all businesses can be built that way, but we believe if there’s a will there’s a way. If you need money and believe in what you are doing, you will be able to find a way to get it. Don’t give up. Don’t take no for an answer.
But if you can create a company that doesn’t rely on outside investors and constant investments, that allows you to be in the driver’s seat of your own company and its future. Starting and running a business is always challenging and it’s key to think outside the box, step outside of your comfort zone, and problem solve. We always say that if you’re comfortable then you’re not growing and it’s pivotal to have a growth mindset when running a business. Lean into the challenges and let your creative brain lead you to the next evolution of your business and of yourself.
But if you can create a company that doesn’t rely on outside investors and constant investments, that allows you to be in the driver’s seat of your own company and its future. Starting and running a business is always challenging and it’s key to think outside the box, step outside of your comfort zone, and problem solve. We always say that if you’re comfortable then you’re not growing and it’s pivotal to have a growth mindset when running a business. Lean into the challenges and let your creative brain lead you to the next evolution of your business and of yourself.
Where do you see the company going now over the near term?
When I think about where our company is going, I return again and again to our mission: to transform as many lives as possible. We have so much room for growth in our existing product categories – nutrition and ingestible beauty – so while it’s fun to envision the future, we are staying grounded in the present moment and doubling down on our mission.
What’s your favorite outdoor dining restaurant in NYC?
La Mercerie at Roman & Williams Guild has been a favorite spot lately.
