Flavored water maker Hint, Inc. announced this week it has raised $25 million in a series D funding round that will help support the company’s continued growth over the next several years.
The round was led by prior investor Springboard Growth Capital (SGC), a firm focused on funding mid-stage CPG companies founded by women, and also includes investments from Philippe Laffont, Gingerbread Capital and Medina Heights Capital Partners. The round brings the company’s total financing to over $50 million and follows a $17.5 million raise last year.
“With Hint, we’ve found a brand that has successfully challenged the status quo to create a dynamic beverage category for the increasingly health conscious consumer,” said Amy Wildstein, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Springboard Growth Capital, in a press release. “Hint’s strong platform of both online and retail distribution has proven to be a tremendous asset – especially in the current environment – and my partners and I are pleased to continue to support the brand, [CEO Kara Goldin], and her team through Hint’s next phase of growth.”
The financing also comes as Hint experiences high double digit sales growth, with the brand up 80% for the 52-week period ending July 12, according to market research firm SPINS. In a call, Hint CEO Kara Goldin noted that the company is profitable and that the round was not directly intended for any specific initiatives but will rather support the brand’s long term growth strategy.
“What our existing investors were seeing in our company was that we’re not only managing well and making the right bets that are paying off, but we’ve actually built this engine that is prepared and, you know, ‘we want in,’” Goldin said.
The raise comes amid the COVID-19 pandemic, which required Hint to refocus growth efforts into the online channel. According to Goldin, roughly 15% of the brand’s business had been food service and office sales — channels that largely shut down in March. That month, she said Hint worked quickly to redirect its budget towards expanding its direct-to-consumer business, which now accounts for roughly 60% of sales.
“We started direct-to-consumer in 2014,” Goldin said. “So while many companies were cancelling their ad buys and standing still trying to figure out exactly what to do next, we were throwing the gas on, making sure we could get our ads out there on Facebook, Google as well as television and radio.”
In addition to DTC, Hint also worked directly with retail partners at the height of consumer panic buying to streamline merchandising and stocking on shelf. Goldin also wrote a personalized public letter sent to consumers via the brand’s mailing list, which she credited as securing a bond between the brand and its customers in the midst of a crisis.
Hint is currently available in about 30,000 stores nationwide, which includes chainwide rollouts in Q1 this year into Walmart, Sam’s Club, BJ’s and Smart & Final stores. In June, the brand launched nationwide into CostCo. Though Goldin did not say where the company is focused on expanding, she said the company will continue to focus on growing its footprint and increasing operations looking forward.
“It’s been an exciting year, a year where we really felt like we had laid the groundwork for every component of the company,” Goldin said. “For the raise, we didn’t really need the money — we’re profitable. But we really wanted to have enough money in the bank for a couple of years to really grow.”