PlantBaby: Alex Abelin shares how to get funded in 2025

Investment Climate Podcast: Fundraising Playbooks From Food Tech CEOs and VCs

In this podcast series, Alex Shandrovsky interviews investors about benchmarks for funding Alt Proteins in 2025 and uncovers the investment playbooks of successful Climate Tech CEOs and Leading VCs.

Podcast Host Alex Shandrovksy is a strategic advisor to numerous global food tech accelerators and companies, including alternative proteins and cellular agriculture leaders. His focus is on investor relations and post-raise scale for agrifood tech companies. This podcast is syndicated through our media partners; Foodtech Weekly and Vegconomist.

Episode 23: PlantBaby: Alex Abelin shares how to get funded in 2025

In this episode, we sit down with Alex Abelin, co-founder and CEO of PlantBaby, the company behind Kiki Milk—the world’s first certified organic whole food plant milk designed for kids and loved by all. Alex opens up about raising a $4.5M priced seed round at a $20M valuation, the long game of building investor trust, and why nurturing relationships with transparency, consistency, and humility ultimately pays off. We explore the cost challenges of building a premium plant-based product, how to structure investor communications with honesty, and why treating startups as marathons—not sprints—is key to founder longevity.

Key Facts PlantBaby:

Goal: To make the world and its people healthier through organic whole foods.
Recently raised $4.5M priced seed round at a $20M valuation.

Alex’s Top Findings:

The Power of a Warm Investor Relationship. A $25K “tracker check” turned into a lead investor through years of relationship-building. " A friend of mine introduced me to a wealthy individual investor who has run a very successful company as the chairman and CEO and has made dozens and dozens investments over his career. He put a $25,000 check into Plant Baby and said, “I prefer to write larger checks. This check is a tracker. I just wanna get to know you. I like you. I like the mission, I like the concept.” He planted a seed in me that said, nurture this relationship. We were very fortunate that we were able to come to a deal and a deeper partnership with him.” Alex shared.
Build Trust with Transparent Communication. Quarterly investor updates include honest reflections on both wins and failures. " I send a quarterly shareholder email out to my whole cap table. I try to be as transparent in those emails as I can. I think that's another piece of building a successful relationship. Being transparent and being honest, and that ultimately builds trust as well, because it's not just sunshine and butterflies and rainbows in an early stage company.”
Kiki Milk Was Built for Founder's Family First. The brand was born out of a personal need, not market research. " We built the most nutrient rich whole food, clean label, organic plant milk, that's ever been commercially produced. Inspired by kids, enjoyed by all with artwork that is inspirational and mystical. We did all this because my family needed it. My son needed it, my wife and I needed it, and we believe that other families needed it too. We didn't spend months and months and tens of thousands of dollars doing the market research and talking to a million families." Alex said.