The growth of pet food and costume company Pet Krewe started with empty shelves.
After seeing a lack of premium pet food options during the COVID pandemic, founder Allison Ward started to develop high quality affordable canned food for cats and dogs. It was a side gig, until a peer nudged her toward taking outside investments to grow the New Orleans-based company to scale.
Pet Krewe ended up being one of the first businesses backed by the Louisiana Growth Fund, a government-run venture capital firm that invests federal dollars in local startups. This helped her size the business up to become the second-largest cat food brand sold at Walmart.
“To this day, we’re the only company in the U.S. that’s servicing this huge market,” she said.
Louisiana Economic Development held a roundtable with recipients from its federally funded venture capital firm Monday, moderated by LED Secretary Susan Bourgeois and Anna deTiege, LED’s director of innovation capital.
Along with Pet Krewe, other participating businesses included tech solutions company Codegig, neurotechnology company 28bio and laundry app hampr, which together represent $3.3 million in growth fund investments. deTiege said $6 million of the funds are in commitment to Louisiana startups and she expects an additional $4 million to be committed by the end of the year.
“We’re showing that Louisiana is not just open for business,” deTiege said. “We’re investing in our own future.”
The Louisiana Growth Fund is one of Louisiana Innovation’s first initiatives after launching earlier this year to prime the state in developing technology businesses. The fund has $50 million in initial federal funding, with an additional $50 million from LED partners.
Twenty companies, including the four present at the roundtable, receive money from the Louisiana Growth fund. DeTiege said there is no cap for the number of businesses that can get involved with the fund.
Collaboration is key to fund recipients, she said, since many of the businesses expanding for the first time.
“Some of these industries are scaling at a rate that’s higher in Louisiana that’s ever happened previously and so getting somebody through first and learning from them, but helping each other along the way is super helpful,” she said.
In addition to the growth fund money, hampr has been leveraging digital media tax credits from the state, which helps cover software costs, said Destin Ortego, executive director of Lafayette-based business incubator Opportunity Machine, who was representing hampr at the roundtable. hampr founder Laurel Hess started the company in Lafayette and chose to stay in Louisiana because most of her investors and talent come from within the state, he said.
Ortego said Hess moved to Austin in search of more capital for the business but moved back to Lafayette after not finding much support in Texas.
“She felt like the capital will come, but the support is by far more important for me at that stage,” Ortego said.
Jennifer Perkins, the vice president of communications for 28bio, said the company was born out of Tulane University and sells to pharmaceutical companies across the country. She said the Louisiana Growth Fund helps the company maintain its research and development center in the state while growing globally.
She said 28bio has stayed in Louisiana because its core researchers are based in the state and still has advisors at Tulane.
“There’s a deep sense of historical knowledge as well as culture that feeds into our organization,” she said.
Kellen Francois, the founder of Codegig, said he’s a graduate of Southeastern Louisiana University and has tapped into Louisiana’s talent. He said he’s hired some of his staff fresh out of LSU, who have potential to keep furthering the industry as they grow.
“They’re getting coached and grown,” he said. “So when we exit, maybe they’ll start their own company.”