$125 Million to Zero WTF!?

I just heard the craziest news.

I literally couldn’t believe it.

So I had to write about it.

A retailer friend said they received notice that Sol Cuisine is being shut down.

Here’s the thing:

We sold Sol Cuisine to Plant Plus Foods for $125M cash two years ago.

Now they are shutting it down?

That’s one hundred and twenty-five million dollars down the drain.

I still don’t quite get it.

Sol Cuisine was one of the oldest plant-based protein companies in Canada.

With a manufacturing facility in Toronto, and dozens of products sold throughout Canada and the USA.

I had joined Sol Cuisine in 2018.

I invested, became chairman of the board, and helped the founder to scale the business value 4x in 3 years.

In 2021 we took the company public.

A few months later we got chased by Plant Plus Foods to buy the company.

Which we successfully sold to them in February 2022 for $125 million cash.

A few thoughts that come to mind:

-> What is really valuable now is not necessarily valuable later.

-> Timing is one of the biggest factors in successful exits.

-> When founders leave the biz, weird stuff happens.

-> Big companies do very strange things.

My heart goes out to Sol’s founder Dror Balshine.

It can’t be easy seeing your grown (business) child put to rest.

And also to the Sol Cuisine team members and their families effected by the shut down.

If I can be helpful in anyway, please let me know.

Onwards and Upwards,

Let’s Grow!

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