Regenerative and natural products company GoodSAM Foods has raised a $9 million Series A round, bringing its total funding to date to $10.5 million.
Bogotá, Colombia-based fund manager Acumen Latam Impact (ALIVE) Ventures and US VC firm Desert Bloom led the round, which will go towards team expansion, new products, and continuing to build out what GoodSAM calls its “direct trade” with smallholder farmers.
This “direct trade” model removes middlemen — frequently known for price gouging — so that the company offtakes foods directly from the farmers, ensuring fairer wages for the latter.
The model also gives smallholder farmers access to markets, something many currently lack, even in systems that call themselves “regenerative.”
“One of our big goals is to be an off-taker for these farmers that are growing in these regenerative systems that I think Americans are not used to seeing,” Greg Krupa, head of investor relations at GoodSAM, told AgFunderNews recently. “You drive down the highway in the Midwest [US] and you see these massive, mono-cropped systems heavily reliant on petrochemicals, whereas farmers that we work with are growing macadamia, avocado, plantain, mango, beans all in the same kind of agroforestry system.”
GoodSAM sources nuts, coffee, and fruit chips from growers predominantly in Latin America and Africa, hence the importance of ALIVE ventures leading the round. Other Latin American investors included the LATAM Impact Fund from Sonen Capital and PE firm FondodeFondos, impact investor Promotora Social Mexico, and Peterffy Family Foundation’s One Small Planet. Connecticut Innovations also participated.
“To have LATAM investors step up to support our vision as an American company, with the majority of our supply network in LATAM, has been humbling and deeply moving,” said Heather K. Terry, CEO and founder of GoodSAM.
For ALIVE, this focus on the farmers was a major part of the draw to invest, suggested ALIVE managing partner Virgilio Barco, who called GoodSAM “a company that is helping smallholder farmers engaged in regenerative agriculture to access premium markets, thus driving prosperity and climate resilience in rural areas.”
If we want regenerative to succeed, ‘we must rethink our business models’
In a recent conversation with AgFunderNews. Terry shed light on some of the challenges GoodSAM attempts to address in terms of building up not just regenerative farming but regenerative systems.
It isn’t just about helping farmers transition to new practices or convincing consumers to pay for goods bearing the “regenerative” label, she suggested.
“While I believe most people genuinely want to do the right thing—as we are all consumers at the end of the day—the challenge lies in the established business paradigm. Companies operate on a profit-at-all-costs model, where anything that doesn’t directly contribute to the bottom line is often the first to be cut when returns fall short of shareholder expectations.”
Meanwhile, farmers and brands “are bearing a disproportionate share of the cost for regeneration — whether through implementing regenerative practices or paying for third-party certifications,” she noted, adding that other stakeholders such as brokers, distributors, and retailers are not sharing the financial burden as much.
“They often require these certifications and actions but neither contribute directly to the cost nor adjust their margin expectations to support the work.
“This imbalance poses a real risk to the future of regenerative initiatives. If we want them to succeed, we must rethink our business models. The key question is: What are we, as stakeholders, willing to sacrifice for the greater good—for a sustainable food system and a future where humanity can thrive?”
Lead image credit: GoodSAM Foods.
