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Celebrities love to use their name to sell products, but it is refreshing when someone brave comes along and decides to veer away from alcohol.
Oodles of noodles: Gal Gadot’s macaroni and cheese brand Goodles is looking to take on the major players in the space with the help of a Series A funding round that has brought the company $13 million, according to Fortune.
- Goodles, founded in late 2021, pitches itself as a healthier macaroni and cheese alternative that incorporates fiber and protein.
- Gadot and her business partner, Jen Zeszut, also wanted to create a brand that appeals to both kids and adults, as opposed to just kids.
Goodles are sold in 35,000 stores nationwide, including Whole Foods, Safeway, and Target. The brand is looking to go up against titans in the macaroni-and-cheese space such as Kraft and Annie’s.
“Our incumbents have a $40 billion-plus market cap—so we can’t play that game,” Zeszut told Fortune. “We can’t do better kids’ commercials…They conceived of the market as ‘mac and cheese is for kids—you open the bunny’s tail to open the box.’ We just said, ‘We’ve got to do something different.'”
Ring me up: GoTab is a hospitality commerce platform that also closed on a Series A funding round that brought in $18 million. The company will use the new funding to expand its set of handheld POS systems, kitchen display systems, kiosks, mobile orders, and payment solutions.
GoTab says its offering increases transactions for its merchants, with average checks rising up to 40% and food halls specifically at more than 100%.
- “Our goal from the beginning has been to help businesses run better through our host of solutions that address virtually every commerce, operations, and fulfillment issue operators and their teams encounter,” Tim McLaughlin, CEO and co-founder at GoTab, said in a statement. “This latest capital injection will help us further enhance our existing solutions, while also helping us continue to scale the business across sectors and geographies.”
Diamonds are forever: As the ethics of mining diamonds has come under more scrutiny over the years, more lab-grown diamond companies have popped up as alternatives. Jean Dosset is one of those brands. It recently opened its first brick-and-mortar store in West Hollywood.
- The boutique offers shoppers appointments where they can design engagement rings, and the space has displays of jewelry that can be tried on and purchased on the spot.
- Although Jean Dosset, founded in 2010, is not a new company, this year it has undergone a rebranding that has included an expanded product catalog and moved to selling only lab-grown diamonds.
“With a physical retail presence, consumers can see the perfection of designer lab diamonds firsthand while adding that experiential element in acquiring the diamond jewelry they desire,” Jean Dousset, founder, designer, and CEO, said in a statement.