- Platform
- Venture
- Sector
- CPG · Beverage
- Stage
- Seed
- First partnered
- 2025
- Founded
- 2017
- Headquarters
- Boston, MA
Waku is a ready-to-drink herbal infusion brand built on a heritage Ecuadorian recipe. The product sits between tea and functional beverage — gut-supportive, low-sugar, and rooted in an ingredient story (six South American botanicals) that is genuinely difficult to copy.
Functional beverage is one of the few CPG categories still growing double digits, and most of the entrants are formulation-led — they invented a benefit and built a story around it. Waku inverted that: the recipe predates the company by generations, which gives the brand a credibility competitors cannot manufacture.
The team is operator-deep on supply chain (the founders own the Ecuadorian sourcing) and brand-led on go-to-market. The combination is what we underwrote.
Seed investment. Our work concentrated on East Coast distribution expansion and the financing architecture that supported a manufacturing relocation closer to demand.
