Dive Brief:
- Laird Superfood is spending $48 million to buy Terrasoul Superfoods, a maker of nuts, powders, baking ingredients and functional beverage mix-ins.
- The acquisition is being funded with financial backing from private equity firm Nexus Capital Management, which will boost its stake in Laird to 71.7% from 53.5% as part of the deal.
- This marks the second major transaction for Laird in the past few months. In late December, Laird announced the purchase of Navitas, a manufacturer of berries, seeds and nutritional powders — a deal that Nexus also helped fund.
Dive Insight:
Founded in 2015 by a big wave surfer, Laird has remained ideally positioned to thrive in the health and wellness space as people gravitate toward better-for-you offerings. As health becomes an even bigger part of consumer food trends, Laird, with a $33 million market cap and $50 million in sales during its 2025 fiscal year, has decided its future is brighter by bulking up through acquisitions.
Laird’s portfolio includes creamers, coffees and hot chocolates with functional mushrooms, plus organic coconut sugar and coconut water with calcified red marine sea algae. The addition of Navitas, and now Terrasoul, further expands Laird’s healthier offerings, giving it a deeper portfolio and scale to reach more consumers and retailers. Terrasoul generated $65.8 million in sales last year alone.
Laird’s deal-making, however, comes with a cost. It’s trading away significant equity to Nexus to support its ability to grow quickly, which Laird is essentially admitting would be harder or impossible to do on its own given its smaller size.
Still, Jason Vieth, Laird’s CEO, said in a statement that the deal marks "a significant step forward in our mission to build the premier platform in superfoods and functional nutrition."
Terrasoul's online marketplace presence, proprietary supply chain infrastructure, and high-quality product portfolio are "strongly aligned with our long-term strategic priorities," Vieth added, and will "meaningfully accelerate our ability to serve consumers across channels at scale.”
Functional foods generally refer to products that deliver specific benefits for consumers, covering a wide range of ingredients and attributes that can boost everything from physical to mental health. The $138 billion functional foods market surged 4% during the year ending Feb. 22, according to data provided by Spins.
Terrasoul's products span both large and emerging segments of the consumer wellness market, and it has a portfolio designed to boost everything from mood and focus to beauty and immunity. Kayla Dean Obia, principal at Nexus, said in a statement that the purchase of Terrasoul "reinforces our conviction in the functional nutrition category.”
