Ray Dalio, JPMorgan back billion-dollar berry startup Fruitist in new 0 million funding round

Ray Dalio, JPMorgan back billion-dollar berry startup Fruitist in new $150 million funding round

Published

1 month ago

October 29, 2025

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Fruitist, the healthy snacking company known for its jumbo blueberries, has raised $150 million in an equity funding round led by new investor J.P. Morgan Asset Management, with billionaire Ray Dalio‘s family office doubling down on its existing investment in the farming startup. The company, valued at over $1 billion, is growing distribution rapidly in a snacking market estimated to be as large as $800 billion and in which consumers are spending more dollars on premium-priced, healthier options.

Fruitist has now raised a total of $443 million in equity capital from investors, and says the new capital will help it push deeper into retail locations around the world. In the U.S., its berries are already sold at Costco, Giant, Publix, ShopRite, Sprouts, Trader Joe’s, Wakefern, Walmart, and Whole Foods, among other stores. It is also planning to expand distribution of its recently introduced single-serve, grab-and-go packs of fresh blueberries, Fruitist Snack Cups, citing explosive growth in the European market, and its new, even larger Legend Super Jumbo blueberries.

The company told CNBC earlier this year that annual sales surpassed $400 million, and says sales of its blueberries have tripled. It did not provide a new sales figure or new valuation with the latest investor round. Aliment Capital and Steve Kaplan, co-founder of Oaktree Capital Management, also participated in the new funding.

“We are investing in growth in volume, more production capacity,” said Fruitist CEO and co-founder Steve Magami, citing its agricultural operations in eight countries. “The dollars are going into growing volumes because demand is far greater than we can supply,” he said.

The majority of the new investor money will fund new planting and investments in cold storage and infrastructure, including automation, to increase control over quality and distribution.

“We believe that Fruitist, with control of its value chain, significant organic growth opportunity ahead, and positioning as a driving force of premiumization of berries and the better-for-you category, will realize durable expansion,” said Brad Demong, managing director, J.P. Morgan Asset Management, in a statement announcing the deal.

The recently introduced Fruitist Snack Cups have grown distribution from an initial 30 stores in Spain in April to 750 stores, and Magami said that is headed to 1,000 stores, and into the U.S. as well, where he said most retail partners will be adding the product in at least a small number of their locations.

Fruitist ranked No. 18 on the 2025 CNBC Disruptor 50 list.

“We see a snacking industry at $600 million to $800 million, and we see the healthy snacking industry as an eighth of that total, and we know our products rank to the far right of the upper right quadrant,” Magami said. He added that company doesn’t see traditional berry industry players, such as Driscoll’s, as the competition, describing them as “more of a commodity.”

“Over time, people will realize regular blueberries are more for the blender and cakes, and these are snacking berries to replace a meal,” he said.

Fruitist founder and CEO Steve Magami

Fruitist

Sally Lyons Wyatt, chief advisor consumer goods & foodservice insights at consulting firm Circana, said the healthy snacking sector, often called the “better for you” segment, is posting notable growth in a relatively flat snacking market. “What is keeping the core snacking category going is the ‘better for you’ products,” she said.

“Berries are full of antioxidants and one of healthiest fruits in this snacking story,” Lyons Wyatt said.

While he declined to comment on any initial public offering timeline, Magami said the firm is closely monitoring the planned IPO of Jennifer Garner’s Once Upon a Farm, which recently filed to go public.

Matthew Kennedy of IPO research firm Renaissance Capital says for investors eyeing companies like Fruitist and Once Upon a Farm, growth is as much, if not more of a driving factor, than the healthy snacking theme. Kennedy said the food space has had “a lot of losers” this year, but added, “it’s especially impressive if a company is able to sell a premium product and take market share while the rest of the industry is under pressure.”

“Companies often go public when growth trends look most optimistic, so the biggest risk for investors is when that growth is unsustainable, either because it was a fad, or because there’s a really devoted initial customer base that doesn’t translate to the broader market,” he said.

Circana has monitored the consumer gravitating to berries for years, “and every year, it’s one of those products that just continues to outpace most traditional packaged snacks,” Lyons Wyatt said. “It will continue to gain strength and we see it being a big hit around the world because it delivers on all the aspects of what consumers are looking for,” she said, but she added that the biggest limitation to broader consumer adoption is price.

“These are priced around $6 a clamshell,” said Magami. “We are not selling champagne strawberries for $19. We are focused on building a durable business and growing the brand and have substantial runway ahead,” he said. “We will realize well above average growth, which is rare in this sector.”

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Technology

How black boxes became key to solving airplane crashes

Published

9 hours ago

November 30, 2025

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How black boxes became key to solving airplane crashes

After the search for survivors and recovery of victims in tragic aviation accidents — like that of a UPS cargo plane shortly after takeoff from Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport in Kentucky last month — comes the search for flight data and a cockpit voice recorder often called the “black box.”

Every commercial plane has them. Aerospace giants GE Aerospace and Honeywell are among a few companies that design them to be nearly indestructible so they can help investigators understand the cause of a crash.

“They’re very crucial because it’s one of the few sources of information that tells us what happened leading up to the accident,” said Chris Babcock, branch chief of the vehicle recorder division at the National Transportation Safety Board. “We can get a lot of information from parts and from the airplane.”

Commercial aircraft have become very complex. A Boeing 787 Dreamliner records thousands of different pieces of information. In the case of the Air India crash in June, data revealed both engine fuel switches were put into a cutoff position within one second of each other. A voice recording from inside the cockpit captured the pilots discussing the cutoffs.

“All of those parameters today can have a very huge impact on the investigation,” said former NTSB member John Goglia. “It’s our goal to to provide information back to our investigators who are on scene as quick as we can to help move the investigation forward.”

This crucial data can also help prevent future accidents. A crash can cost airlines or plane manufacturers hundreds of millions of dollars and leave victims’ families with a lifetime of grief.

But in some circumstances black boxes were destroyed or never found. Experts say further developments such as cockpit video recorders and real-time data streaming are needed.

“The technology is there. Crash worthy cockpit video recorders are already being installed in a lot of helicopters and other types of airplanes, but they’re not required,” said Jeff Guzzetti, aviation analyst and former accident investigator for the Federal Aviation Administration and NTSB. “There’s privacy and cost issues involving cockpit video recorders but the NTSB has been recommending that the FAA require them for years now.”

Watch the video to learn more.

— CNBC’s Leslie Josephs contributed to this report.

Technology

Stocks end November with mixed results despite a strong Thanksgiving week rally

Published

2 days ago

November 28, 2025

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Stocks end November with mixed results despite a strong Thanksgiving week rally

Technology

Palantir has worst month in two years as AI stocks sell off

Published

2 days ago

November 28, 2025

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Palantir has worst month in two years as AI stocks sell off

CEO of Palantir Technologies Alex Karp attends the Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit, at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S., July 15, 2025.

Nathan Howard | Reuters

It’s been a tough November for Palantir.

Shares of the software analytics provider dropped 16% for their worst month since August 2023 as investors dumped AI stocks due to valuation fears. Meanwhile, famed investor Michael Burry doubled down on the artificial intelligence trade and bet against the company.

Palantir started November off on a high note.

The Denver-based company topped Wall Street’s third-quarter earnings and revenue expectations. Palantir also posted its second-straight $1 billion revenue quarter, but high valuation concerns contributed to a post-print selloff.

In a note to clients, Jefferies analysts called Palantir’s valuation “extreme” and argued investors would find better risk-reward in AI names such as Microsoft and Snowflake. Analysts at RBC Capital Markets raised concerns about the company’s “increasingly concentrated growth profile,” while Deutsche Bank called the valuation “very difficult to wrap our heads around.”

Adding fuel to the post-earnings selloff was the revelation that Burry is betting against Palantir and AI chipmaker Nvidia. Burry, who is widely known for predicting the housing crisis that occurred in 2008 and the portrayal of him in the film “The Big Short,” later accused hyperscalers of artificially boosting earnings.

Palantir CEO Alex Karp vocally hit the front lines, appearing twice in one week on CNBC, where he accused Burry of “market manipulation” and called the investor’s actions “egregious.”

“The idea that chips and ontology is what you want to short is bats— crazy,” Karp told CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

Despite the vicious selloff, Palantir has notched some deal wins this month. That included a multiyear contract with consulting firm PwC to speed up AI adoption in the U.K. and a deal with aircraft engine maintenance company FTAI.

But those announcements did little to shake off valuation worries that have haunted all AI-tied companies in November.

Across the board, investors have viciously ditched the high-priced group, citing fears of stretched valuations and a bubble.

In November, Nvidia pulled back more than 12%, while Microsoft and Amazon dropped about 5% each. Quantum computing names such as Rigetti Computing and D-Wave Quantum have shed more than a third of their value.

Apple and Alphabet were the only Magnificent 7 stocks to end the month with gains.

Sill, questions linger over Palantir’s valuation, and those worries aren’t a new concern.

Even after its steep price drop, the company’s stock trades at 233 times forward earnings. By comparison, Nvidia and Alphabet traded at about 38 times and 30 times, respectively, at Friday’s close.

Karp, who has long defended the company, didn’t miss an opportunity to clap back at his critics, arguing in a letter to shareholders that the company is making it feasible for everyday investors to attain rates of return once “limited to the most successful venture capitalists in Palo Alto.”

“Please turn on the conventional television and see how unhappy those that didn’t invest in us are,” Karp said during an earnings call. “Enjoy, get some popcorn. They’re crying. We are every day making this company better, and we’re doing it for this nation, for allied countries.”

Palantir declined to comment for this story.

WATCH: Palantir CEO Alex Karp: We’ve printed venture results for the average American