Trilantic has partnered with Steve Hughes, a natural foods entrepreneur, to form Sunrise Strategic Partners, LLC. The new partnership will invest in emerging brands in the healthy, active and sustainable living sectors. Target companies for Sunrise will be companies that have from $10 million to $20 million in revenue.
Mr. Hughes is a pioneer in the natural and organic food and beverage industry, and a veteran food industry executive with over 30 years of experience. Most recently he was Founder, Chairman and CEO of Boulder Brands, a publically-traded natural food and beverage company. Boulder’s products include EVOL, Udi’s Gluten Free, Glutino, and Earth Balance. Mr. Hughes left Boulder Brands in June 2015.
“Trilantic and I share the vision that there is tremendous value to be created by helping founders of brands that resonate with the millennial consumer scale their business,” said Mr. Hughes. “I am excited to partner with Trilantic to create a platform with the growth expertise and capital founders need to scale a great proof of concept into a disruptive force in their category.”
“Sunrise Strategic Partners, with its experienced team, network of advisors and industry relationships, will help entrepreneurs accelerate the growth of their businesses,” said Jamie Manges, Partner at Trilantic North America. “We are thrilled to be partnered with Steve who has a strong reputation of investing in and growing consumer brands.”
Sunrise has already acquired its first portfolio company with an investment earlier this week in PACT Apparel, a maker of sweatshop free and ethically produced apparel for men, women, and children. PACT products include tops, bottoms, and socks for men; tops, bottoms and leggings, and socks for women; and beanies, tops and bottoms, and socks for babies. The company sells its products through stores and retailers, as well as online. PACT is led by CEO Brendan Synnott and is based in Berkeley, CA (www.wearpact.com). The investment from Sunrise will be used by PACT to increase distribution and fund additional marketing.
Trilantic makes control and significant minority investments in North America and European companies that have enterprise values of $100 million to $1 billion. Sectors of interest include business services, consumer, energy, financial services and media & telecommunications sectors. Trilantic was formed in 2009 by the former principals of Lehman Brothers Merchant Banking and currently manages four funds with aggregate capital commitments of $5.7 billion. The firm is based in New York (www.trilantic.com).
Sunrise Strategic Partners is based in Boulder, CO (www.sunrisestrategicpartners.com).
© 2016 PEPD • Private Equity’s Leading News Magazine • 2-26-16
