Private-equity firm VMG Partners has taken a “minority" stake in US collagen protein bar brand Stars + Honey.
Stars + Honey told Just Food that VMG Partners has invested $24m in the business, which was founded by CEO Daniel Rainey in 2023 and remains the majority shareholder.
In a statement yesterday (9 June), Los Angeles-based Stars + Honey said the investment will support its “omnichannel expansion, drive continued product development and brand growth”.
The brand is currently sold only on StarsandHoney.com and Amazon, but the company informed Just Food that it will “soon debut in its first-ever retailer at the end of this month”.
It said in the statement the funding will be used to build a new 60,000 square foot manufacturing facility, which will “allow the brand to build the operational infrastructure needed to support national scale”.
Production at the new facility, located in Novi, Michigan, will start in the final quarter of 2026 and will replace the Decatur location, where Stars + Honey collagen protein bars are currently made, the company told Just Food.
As part of the transaction, VMG general partner McConnell Smith will join Stars + Honey’s board of directors.
The company said it has developed 18 bar flavours in the past 14 months and plans to launch more this year.
Its bars are made with Type I and Type III grass-fed bovine collagen peptides and are marketed as free from gluten, dairy, soy, sugar alcohols and seed oils.
Rainey said the company was “created to bring care, craft, and attention to detail to a category that often lacks it”.
He added: “Getting there has been far more difficult than we expected, and in many ways the industry isn’t built for the level of quality and control we wanted. That pushed us to build and refine so much in-house ourselves.”
In its statement, Stars + Honey said it posted 300% growth last year and is targeting about $50m in revenue in 2026, supported by the push into retail.
For VMG, the deal adds another bar brand to a portfolio built around consumer-packaged goods, which also includes pasta brand Brami, frozen fruit snack brand Fruit Riot and baby food offering Little Freddie.
“We’ve invested in some of the most iconic bar brands over the past 20 years, which helped us very quickly recognise how special Stars + Honey is,” Smith said.
“Daniel’s created a tremendous product that speaks to a really underserved consumer in the space, and he’s assembled a phenomenal team to build with.”
