Frontier Nutrition, a company manufacturing and marketing affordable fortified snacks in Bangladesh, has announced a $6 million Series B financing led by Adjuvant Capital, a life sciences fund backed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the International Finance Corporation, and joined by DSG Consumer Partners, a leading Singapore-based venture capital fund and return investor DSM Venturing, the investment arm of Royal DSM, the largest producer of micronutrients worldwide. Other investors who participated in the round include Shazi Visram (founder of Happy Family Organics and Healthynest), Seth Goldman (founder of Eat the Change, chairman of Beyond Meat, co-founder of Honest Tea), Bridgette Heller (board member for Novartis, Dexcom, and Tech Data Corporation), and Great Point Ventures.
The company says it will use the investment to bring manufacturing of several products in-house, launch a sales and marketing campaign to raise awareness of the consumer brand Hashi Khushi, and develop new products that can be used in research studies and international humanitarian efforts. Concurrent with the financing, Michael Chang, principal at Adjuvant Capital, will join Frontier Nutrition's Board of Directors.
Founded by Eddie Bearnot and Tanveer Ali in 2016, Frontier Nutrition develops, manufactures, and markets delicious, fortified snacks that treat and prevent malnutrition and cost just $0.06 per serving. Currently operating in Bangladesh under the brands "Hashi Khushi" and "Nutri+", Frontier's range of fortified products, which include lentil butter, chocolates, powdered drinks, and biscuits, are carried in more than 50,000 outlets across Bangladesh.
"Frontier's suite of micronutrient fortified snack foods provides a unique solution to addressing malnutrition among mothers and children in Bangladesh. The products are competitively priced, locally produced, and, perhaps most importantly, tailored to the Bangladeshi palette, making them an attractive snacking alternative," said Chang. "We couldn't be more excited to be part of Frontier's growth story as they work to scale distribution of these impactful products to women and children across the country."
Founded in 2016, Frontier Nutrition has seen an excellent growth over the past years. The company currently has 20 SKUs of its own branded portfolio of products and is growing every month. You can buy Frontier Nutrition products at 20,000 outlets in 20 districts across Bangladesh.
In order to build a solid footing in the market, Frontier Nutrition has already been doing both improving its existing product as well as adding new products to its product line.
“We realized early on that our core innovation — fortified lentil butter — would not be enough to sustain us,” Eddie told FS in an interview published August 2020. “A great product is not the same thing as a great company. In order to be both commercially viable and nutritionally impactful we needed to develop a range of products to meet the needs of the Bangladeshi consumer.”
The company has been working on expanding its range of products as well as distribution coverage and manufacturing capacity. “We have plans to increase our range of products and geographic distribution, expand our manufacturing capacity, and partner with other organizations to increase our reach, impact, and relevance,” Eddie explained at the time. The new investment should allow the company to invest in both the manufacturing and market expansion.
