Once Upon a Farm Eyes IPO

From Hollywood to Whole Foods to Wall Street?
Jennifer Garner’s organic baby food brand Once Upon a Farm has confidentially filed for IPO, reportedly targeting a $1B valuation.

• Co-founded in 2015, most recent round was a $52M Series D at a $365M val

• 2025 revenue reportedly at $100M

• Distributed in 11,000+ doors (Target, Whole Foods, Walmart)

What makes this brand special in a crowded category? A refrigerated, cold-pressed product line, a high-Awareness co-founder, and massive refrigerated shelf investment early on.

Garner’s quiet persistence—and a bet on freshness over shelf-stable—might just deliver a blockbuster outcome.

Dôen Defies the DTC Apparel Slump

Apparel brands aren’t dead. The good ones are just growing quietly.

While capital has pulled back from fashion and DTC , Silas Capital (ILIA, Boll & Branch) just bet big on California-based Dôen, a women’s lifestyle brand with:

• $100M+ in revenue

• 7 stores + wholesale via Saks, Nordstrom, Net-a-Porter

• Full lifestyle expansion from dresses to loungewear to home capsules

In a market where wholesale is back in vogue and capital efficiency matters more than hype, Dôen’s build-with-intention model shows that fashion isn’t broken—it just needed a margin makeover.

DUDE Wipes: A $300K Bet Worth $125M?

Mark Cuban’s greatest Shark Tank deal? Might be.

In 2015, he put $300K into DUDE Wipes for 25%. Fast forward:

• 2025 revenue estimated at $220M+

• Just took on growth capital from TSG (Vitaminwater, e.l.f.)

• Reported valuation: $500M

• Cuban’s stake now worth ~$125M — a 1667x return

From flushable wipes to financial rocketship, DUDE shows the power of sticky brand positioning, retail scale (20K+ doors), and not overthinking a simple product that solves a real problem.

🎙 Podcast Spotlight: Asher Hochberg on "Blurry Categories" and the Next Consumer Breakouts

This week on In the Money, we sat down with Asher Hochberg, founder of Rootspring and former consumer credit/growth investor, to unpack where the next great consumer brands will come from—and why the capital stack has permanently changed.

🔥 Key Highlights:

• Invest in the blurry edge. Asher avoids chasing trends. He looks for brands sitting “adjacent to massive incumbents” but with underserved demand: hydration powders before Liquid IV, remote-first IVF clinics, preventative health hubs.

• 2025 Seed = Scarcity. There’s been a dramatic retreat of equity capital for early-stage consumer since 2022. AI took VC oxygen, and interest rate hikes scared LPs. That’s left an opening for seed-stage investors with conviction—and a valuation reset that favors capital efficiency.

• Retention is everything. Great brands aren’t just about first purchase—they drive repeat. But don’t “back up the Brinks truck” on one cohort. Repeat rate + gross margin = quality signal. And even then… be patient.

• Overfunding kills exits. “When buyers see all the juice already squeezed out of a brand, they get nervous.” Asher’s advice? Raise less, prove more. Let the acquirer dream about upside.

• Consumer M&A is still strong. Compared to SaaS, consumer offers more frequent exits and clear paths to profitability. Big players like Pepsi and Keurig are still buying aggressively—if the brand proves repeat, relevance, and scale.

🎧 Watch on YouTube, listen on Spotify.

That’s it for this week.
If you liked this issue, forward to a friend who obsesses over brand strategy, capital flows, or exit timing.

In the Money – following the flow of capital in consumer