INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Most high-end restaurants don&t get their beef from the local grocery store
Well-regarded chefs and restauranteurs build relationships with small farms and family ranchers to procure what known in the industry as
craft beef.
Just like coffee or chocolate or wine, the smallest differences (type of grass, breed of cow, lifestyle, etc.) can make a big
difference in overall taste
But you and I have never had easy access to this beef outside of hitting up a Michelin-star restaurant.
And then Crowd Cow came along.
Crowd
Cow, based in Seattle, works with small family farms to let users choose their cow and their cut
Crowd Cow then ships this craft beef directly to a user home.
Before Crowd Cow, five or six families would have to go in together on more
than 500 LBs of beef in order to be a compelling customer to these small farms
That means they need a large meat freezer, upfront cash, and all the time and resources necessary to get the product from the farm to the
home.
Crowd Cow founders Joe Heitzeberg and Ethan Lowry realized the whole process would be much better for everyone if they could
crowdsource 50 families, instead of four or five, to buy a cow
The company handles logistics and offers users a way to learn about the ranch, the cow, and more via the app.
Today, the company is
announcing that it has closed an $8 million Series A funding led by Madrona Venture Group, with participation from Ashton Kutcher of Sound
Ventures and existing investor Joe Montana of Liquid 2 Ventures.
Since launch, Seattle-based Crowd Cow has expanded to offer chicken, olive
wagyu, and pork and now serves the entire contiguous United States
The company generates more than $1 million in revenue a month and revenue has grown 10x over the last year.
The greater vision is to
de-commoditize beef.
The Seattle-based company isn&t the only startup to raise money in an attempt to get people to eat better beef
Earlier this month, Porter Road closed on $3.7 million to go after the market with a similar mission.
Backed by a slew of New York venture
firms including Slow Ventures, Max Ventures, BoxGroup, Tribeca Venture Partners and the Collaborative Fund, Porter Road was founded by
trained chefs and butchers Chris Carter and James Peisker
Originally working out of a butcher shop in Nashville, Tenn
since 2011, the two partners work with sustainable local farmers to source the best meat.
Both companies are putting a new spin on a model
made famous by Omaha Steaks, the meat packer and mail order distributor founded over 100 years ago, which is now pulls in $450 million in
revenue a year.
&Before Starbucks and microbrew, coffee was 50 cents and there were a handful of beers and no one really cared,& said Crow
&The reality is that beef is varied
There are 300 breeds, and there are different types of grass in these pastures, and these factors will lead to a very different taste
Beef doesn&t have to be a commodity.&
Crowd Cow plans to use the funding to continue expansion into different proteins and new markets, as
well as opening new distribution centers to speed up delivery to customers.
