New Year, New Epoch
Introducing New Epoch Capital
2025: Forging Ahead with New Epoch Capital
It’s a very exciting time for New Epoch Capital, and as we begin 2025 with renewed energy, inspiration, and optimism, we want to take a moment to reflect on how far we have come, and how sincerely grateful we are to you. Thank you to our co-investors, our strategic partners, and our world-class advisory board. Your engagement and support this year have enabled us to take bold strides towards growing our firm, capturing the momentum of conscious consumer growth, and unlocking a thriving future for all. We wish you a joyful and prosperous 2025 and we look forward to re-connecting in the new year on our fund, co-investment opportunities, and other strategic initiatives.
Fund Updates
Company Spotlight: Rivalz
What we're up to in Q1
Looking Ahead at Conscious Consumer Growth
Fund Updates
Operations: We're excited to share that as of Q4 2024, we have established the legal entities for New Epoch Capital in both the U.S. and Europe.
Fund launch: Having lined up key strategic partners and investors during 2024, we are about to launch our Fund I and expect a first capital close by early Q2. We’d love to share more details with anyone interested in joining us on this exciting journey, and will keep you posted on our progress. Please reach out to us directly for more information, or to request our deck.
Company Spotlight: Rivalz
Rivalz: A New Epoch pipeline company delivering healthy snacks that taste better and do better.
Rivalz is pioneering the use of AI in food formulation and manufacturing: transforming high carb, high glycemic, low protein foods to low glycemic, high protein, high fiber, functional foods—starting with snacks.
Over 50% of the food on shelves around the world is produced with extrusion technology (pasta, cereal, snacks), which until now has been limited to carbohydrates. Rivalz’ AI enables existing extruders globally to handle high protein, high fiber inputs, producing healthier versions of familiar foods.
Rivalz and its founders were recently featured in Bloomberg’s Wall Street Week (to view, skip ahead to minute 24).
New Epoch Capital is working closely with Rivalz to position it for its next stage of growth.
What we're up to in Q1
New Epoch Co-Founder Victor Friedberg will be speaking at the Spark Summit in Miami, February 4–5th, sharing the stage in a fireside chat on food system transformation with Danielle Nierenberg, FoodTank, moderated by Barry Didato.
Anthony Stam, Partner in Europe, will be attending the IPEM conference in Cannes, France, January 28-30th, and will be speaking at TechArena in Stockholm, February 19th-21st: one of the largest tech and investor events in the Nordics.
Reflections on Conscious Consumer Growth in 2025
Optimism and Discernment: McKinsey reports that consumer optimism is at its highest rate since the pandemic.
Discerning choices: “These consumers are likely balancing their reported optimism with pragmatism. Notably, private brands are becoming more popular among consumers across income groups by offering high-quality choices that consumers perceive to have high value.”The Conscious Consumer Spending Index 2024 (Good.Must.Grow): Socially Responsible Spending Is Still Trending in the Right Direction Despite Slight Decline from Previous Year, According to 12th Annual Conscious Consumer Spending Index.
"While we are reporting a decline in this year’s score, we also have established a new baseline for the Index that demonstrates overall growth in do-good behaviors over the last 12 years,” says Heath Shackleford, founder of Good.Must.Grow. “Prior to 2021, the Index had never posted a score above 50, but in the four years since, we’ve consistently surpassed that threshold.”
New Epoch defines 'conscious consumerism' differently, where it is not limited to sustainability, impact, or companies that are perceived to “do good,” — but rather that deliver very specific benefits on health, resiliency, transparency, and accessibility, and in doing so both meet the demands of their customers and grow company revenues and profits.
25 conscious CPG and retail trends and predictions for 2025 (New Hope Network): Rising trends in natural food and beverage, supplements, beauty, and sustainability align seamlessly with New Epoch Capital’s thesis.
Functional foods and ingredients, protein-fueled innovation (New Epoch has a breakthrough pipeline opportunity in protein metabolism), personalization, and multi-functional health products are all expected to make significant inroads in 2025, driven by rapidly growing conscious consumer demand.In 2025, ingredients and materials trends are expected to focus on sustainability, health, and flavor. Several year-end studies and opinion pieces point the way: