North Bay, California · An angel investment collective

North Bay food and beverage founders outgrow their kitchens faster than they can find capital.

We see the opportunity.

$2.75B+
Annual farm-gate value across Sonoma, Napa, Marin, Solano, Lake and Mendocino
17 yrs
Consecutive years of specialty food category growth, nationally
$400M
Bachan's exit, from a Sebastopol home kitchen to sale in just over a decade
$176K
The cottage food sales ceiling our capital helps founders climb past

The opportunity

The gap between a home kitchen and a real CPG brand.

Specialty food keeps growing, buyers keep hunting for new products, and many founders have already proven demand. Capital stays hard to come by for these founders, even here, in a region already built to produce it.

We invest $75,000 to $150,000 in North Bay food and beverage producers who have proven demand at a farmers market, in a home kitchen, or on a first retail shelf, and who need capital to graduate into licensed commercial production. That is the exact gap between what a cottage food license allows and what a packaged brand requires. In a six-county region with no dedicated fund for it, the gap is wide open.

Read the full thesis

Why the North Bay

A region already built to produce it.

01

A deep bench of operators

Founders, operators, and food and beverage entrepreneurs living locally, an underused source of both capital and expertise.

02

Infrastructure that de-risks scaling

Co-packers, growers, wineries, and distribution relationships already in place, so portfolio companies scale on rails that exist.

03

A regional brand with real premium

North Bay origin carries weight on the shelf and in direct-to-consumer channels.

04

Bay Area proximity, North Bay pricing

Access to Bay Area capital and distribution markets, at valuations and deal-flow competition that stay local.

05

Grocers who already buy local

A network of independent, locally owned grocers who prioritize local sourcing as a matter of course.

How it works

An angel collective, with a deal-by-deal choice.

Members commit capital annually and choose how to allocate it across investment opportunities. Each member makes their own investment decisions, informed by a collective pipeline and community diligence.

1

Commit annually

Members commit capital for the year, then decide deal by deal where it goes.

2

See the pipeline

The collective sources founders and shares community diligence on every opportunity.

3

Invest through an SPV

Each deal bundles individual checks into a single investment, with the power of the collective behind it.

4

Build a portfolio

Over five years, each member builds a diversified portfolio of roughly 30 companies.

Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV). A single-deal entity that pools many small checks into one investment. The founder gets funding certainty and one line on the cap table. Members get flexibility and a genuinely low bar to entry.

See the investment snapshot

The collective's edge

Operating expertise on the other side of the table.

The edge here is the group of successful local food entrepreneurs sitting across from every founder: help with co-packers, distribution, retail placement, and brand-building that a generalist investor cannot offer.

Get involved

Let's talk about anchoring the next chapter of North Bay food.

Four ways to take part: as a founding member, a member, a community partner, or a founder raising capital.

Ways to participate