Hardware Podcasts

Founder Fundraising Journey: Jesse Konig, CEO & Co-Founder of Jesse & Ben's

The Startup CPG Podcast · 28 Feb 2026 · 45m · Episode 267

What this episode covers

Jesse Konig, CEO and Co-Founder of Jesse & Ben's, details his fundraising journey from a friends-and-family SAFE round to an institutional process, explaining how velocity data and fanatical customers drove competitive FOMO that increased their valuation cap three times in one week. Konig describes the operational pivot of opening a 6,000 sq ft production facility in 2025 to support nationwide distribution at Whole Foods and Sprouts, while co-founder Ben handled the build-out. He emphasizes that fundraising is a full-time momentum game, advising founders to raise more than they think they need to avoid running out of money and to select investors based on back-channel references rather than just curated intros.

Most relevant to

early-stage companies

Topics

Mentioned

Companies
Jesse & Ben's, Whole Foods, Sprouts, Target, Kroger, Costco, Primal Kitchen, Epic Provisions, Siete, Solar

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