DMG Media‘s venture capital arm, DMG Ventures, has made new investments in two food and drink companies: cacao pod “upcycling” company Blue Stripes and cannabidoil (CBD) product manufacturer Trip.
The investments, of undisclosed size, come as DMG Ventures announced the launch of two new £25m funds: a “Headline Fund” designed to back “consumer-facing start-ups from Seed to Series A” and a “Scale Fund” that it says will help more established consumer brands “accelerate their growth” through partnerships with DMG Media titles.
DMG Media publishes newsbrands including the Daily Mail, Mail Online, Metro, the i and the New Scientist.
DMG Ventures launched in 2018 and says it has since invested in 29 consumer-facing start-ups including electric toothbrush brand SURI, racing simulator F1 Arcade and money management app Plum. Keeping with DMG Ventures’ pledge to support companies it invests in with exposure on DMG Media titles, SURI and Plum have been written up on Mail Online in both straight ad content and product reviews.
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Pure Stripes manufactures drinks and food using whole cacao pods, which it says differentiates itself from typical chocolate companies which waste “70% of the cacao pod” by only using the beans.
Trip meanwhile describes itself as the UK’s “#1 CBD brand” and is best known for its tins of CBD-infused drinks, which are widely available in high street shops. Although it can be extracted from cannabis (as well as hemp) CBD is legal.
Trip suggests its products can help promote calm and reduce anxiety and stress, although a review of Trip products on Mail Online earlier this year reported no obvious change in stress levels after using the products.
Manuel Lopo de Carvalho, the managing partner at DMG Ventures, said: “We’re delighted to launch two new funds to support the most exciting entrepreneurs in Europe and the US.
“Thanks to our unique investment strategy, we are ideally placed to seize opportunities from what we believe will be a transformational shift in the consumer sector.”
Rachel Muzyczka, a newly-promoted partner at the company, added: “We’re really looking forward to working with Trip and Blue Stripes, which are two of the best emerging food and beverage brands globally. Trip is among the most outstanding startups we have seen, while Blue Stripes’ team is second to none.
“We will put the full weight of DMGT’s media brands – and their vast global audience – behind Trip and Blue Stripes.”
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