Would You Be Proud to Take Your CPG Brand Into This Room?
I've spent more than 10 years designing brands in the CPG industry and 6+ Years running an actual CPG startup.
So when I see something like Startup CPG's Founders & Funders, It represents an exciting industry event - a fascinating test.
What happens when you take 200 emerging CPG brands and put them in a room with 100+ active consumer investors?
On December 10, 2026, that's exactly what Startup CPG is planning to do in New York City.
And after looking at what happened at the inaugural event in 2025, I think it's worth paying attention to.
Last year proved the idea
The first Founders & Funders brought together 160 emerging CPG brands and 70 active consumer investors.
Over the course of the day, Startup CPG coordinated more than 600 curated one-on-one meetings. Investors reviewed brand one-pagers beforehand and selected the founders they wanted to meet.
There were also investor panels, networking, product sampling and opportunities for founders to pitch.
And according to Startup CPG, more than five fundraising rounds have since closed involving brands that attended the event.
That's very exciting!
Fundraising is usually a long game of introductions, emails, follow-ups, referrals and trying to get someone to give you 30 minutes.
Founders & Funders is trying to compress that process into a single room.
This year's event is even bigger: Startup CPG says 200 CPG founders and 100+ active investors are expected, with the investor network having grown more than threefold since the inaugural event.
And that brings me to the part I find particularly interesting as a designer.
What does your brand look like when the stakes get higher?
Imagine sitting across from an investor for ten minutes.
They've probably seen dozens of brands that day.
You have a great product.
You have customers.
You have traction.
You know your numbers.
You know exactly why this business should exist.
But before any of that conversation happens, there's something sitting on the table.
Your product.
Your packaging.
Your logo.
Your one-pager.
Your website.
Your photography.
Your pitch deck.
Your entire visual system.
And all of those things are communicating something.
Not necessarily whether your business is good.
But whether the business looks ready for the next stage.
That's an important distinction.
Design doesn't replace a great product, strong economics or a compelling founder.
But design can make those things easier to understand.
CPG has a strange problem
A lot of emerging CPG brands begin exactly where they should.
They start small.
The founder knows the customer personally.
The product might begin at a farmers market, through DTC, at local retailers, through friends and family, or within a specific community.
The packaging gets made.
The website gets launched.
The Instagram gets going.
And then something happens.
The product starts working.
More customers.
More SKUs.
More retailers.
More distribution.
More attention.
Maybe investment becomes part of the conversation.
And suddenly the brand that was perfectly adequate for its first 500 customers has to communicate with 5,000.
Then 50,000.
Then potentially millions.
That's when the question changes.
It's no longer:
“Do people who know us like us?”
It's:
“Can someone who has never heard of us understand why we matter?”
That's a completely different branding challenge.
This is where I think events like Founders & Funders become fascinating
Because the event isn't just putting founders and investors together.
It's putting brands into an environment where comparison happens naturally.
You walk into a room with your product.
And there are 199 other emerging CPG brands trying to build something too.
You don't get to control the shelf.
You don't get to control what the investor saw five minutes before meeting you.
You don't get to explain every detail before they see the package.
You simply show up.
And that's not very different from retail.
On a shelf, your competitor is sitting next to you.
Online, another brand is one swipe away.
In an investor meeting, another founder might be sitting in the next chair.
Your brand has to communicate.
The brands that get this right
One of the things I enjoy about the emerging CPG space is that there are now so many brands taking branding seriously from the beginning.
Startup CPG's own Shelfie Awards are a useful snapshot of this. In 2026, more than 2,000 products were submitted, and Startup CPG says its judges sampled more than 2,000 products in one week. Its judging framework includes taste, innovation, bettering the goods system and branding.
That's a lot of competition.
And it tells me something important:
Good products are no longer enough to differentiate themselves simply by existing.
The product has to work.
The business has to work.
And increasingly, the brand has to work.
So here's the question I'd ask every founder
Imagine Startup CPG calls you tomorrow.
“Congratulations. You're invited to Founders & Funders.”
You have your product.
You have your numbers.
You have your story.
You have ten minutes with an investor.
You put your product on the table.
You open your one-pager.
You pull up your website.
You show them your pitch deck.
Would you be proud of what they see?
Does your brand look like it belongs in the room it's trying to enter?
Because that's the real job of brand design.
Making something pretty, is simply a byproduct of that entire thought-process.
Making the ambition of the business visible.
And if you're building a CPG brand that you want to take into bigger retailers, new markets, new channels, or eventually into a room full of investors, that conversation needs to happen before you get there.
Founders & Funders 2026 is happening December 10 in New York City. Applications are currently open, and Startup CPG says accepted brands pay $350 for the full-day event.
If you're a founder planning your next raise—or simply building toward the next stage of your brand—I'd encourage you to look at the event.
And then look at your brand.
Would you be proud to take it into that room?
If your answer is no, book a discovery call and let's get you on track.
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