Jay Z is building his business portfolio and helping in the expansion of a growing black-owned vegan cookie company. Hov’s Marcy Venture Partners recently led a $1 million investment into Partake Foods, a three-year-old New Jersey-based company.
Other investors include, The FactoryBackstage Capital, SoFi Ventures, and Chuck Muth, Chief Growth Officers of Beyond Meat.
Partake Foods was founded in 2016 by Denise Woodard, a former Coca-Cola’s national sales director. The idea for the cookie company came about due to Woodard’s daughter’s food allergies. Woodward set out to create her own allergy-friendly “delicious cookies that you can feel good about.”
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Woodard launched Partake Foods with the help of crowdfunding donations, and sold cookies out of her car for six months. She did everything from completing daily demoes to meeting with store managers and customers, and it pad off.
Today, Partake Foods can be found in more than 300 stores. “We expect to finish this year with a new pack offering and in over 1,000 stores,” Woodard said according to Black Enterprise. “We are so excited to collaborate with the MVP and Factory teams, as they both bring a wealth of knowledge in brand building and scaling consumer companies.”
The company currently offers sprouted grain chocolate mini cookies, double chocolate chip mini cookies, sweet potato millet mini cookies, and carrot oat mini cookies. All products are dairy free, non-GMO, nut-free and soy-free.
Woodard will use the million dollar investment to expand the brand and her team.
“Partake has the ingredients to build a mass market brand: compelling values, a great tasting product, and a tenacious and experienced operator,” Larry Marcus, Marcy Venture Partners co-founder and managing director, said via press release, according to Entrepreneur.com. “We are honored to back [Partake Founder] Denise [Woodard] and the team and help grow their business.”