David Protein's Parent Raises $250 Million at a $2.25 Billion Valuation
Medici Brands — the company behind David Protein and the newly launched candy brand HallPass — has tripled its valuation in a year, betting that "smarter" reformulations of everyday snacks, not abstinence, are what will win the modern grocery aisle.
The Round at a Glance
Medici Brands, the parent company of high-protein snack brand David Protein and the newly launched confectionery label HallPass, announced on September 2, 2026 that it had closed a $250 million Series B financing round. The round was co-led by existing backers Greenoaks and Valor Equity Partners, with participation from Medici CEO and RXBAR founder Peter Rahal, along with ICONIQ and Imaginary Ventures.
Media reports place Medici's resulting valuation at approximately $2.25 billion — roughly three times where it stood a year earlier. The financing follows a $75 million Series A round in 2025, which was used in part to acquire Epogee, maker of the alternative-fat ingredient EPG that underpins several of Medici's products.
Key Takeaways
- Medici Brands raised $250M in Series B funding, reportedly valuing the company at $2.25B — about three times last year's valuation.
- David Protein grew from a single direct-to-consumer bar in September 2024 to more than 35,000 retail doors, including Walmart, Target and Costco.
- The company is pursuing a "house of brands" strategy: David (protein), HallPass (candy), and Rowdy (chips, launching later in 2026), built on shared ingredient technology.
- Capital will fund retail expansion, new product formats, and the infrastructure to launch additional brands.
- The raise underscores investor appetite for "better-for-you" reformulation platforms that compete on taste and price, not just macros.
Since We Last Checked In
SFT covered David's frozen dessert launch in June, when its first run of high-protein ice cream pints sold out in 28 minutes. At that point the brand had roughly 16,000 retail doors and $85 million in total funding. Three months on, distribution has more than doubled to 35,000+ locations, and the company says it remains on track to surpass $300 million in revenue in 2026 — a claim that, as before, has not been independently verified.
The bigger shift since June is structural: David is no longer the whole story. In August 2026, parent company Medici launched HallPass nationwide at Walmart — a confectionery brand positioned to deliver classic-candy taste at a fraction of the calories and sugar, and, notably, without the price premium typically attached to better-for-you products. A third brand, Rowdy, a chips line, is reported to be launching later in 2026. The Series B is effectively capitalizing that expansion, not the original bar business.
"-We want to improve public health by making [popular foods] smarter — lower calories, less sugar, no compromise on taste."
Why Investors Are Backing the "Smarter Foods" Thesis
For Greenoaks and Valor Equity Partners, the bet is not on a single hit product but on a repeatable model: apply the same reformulation playbook — high protein or lower sugar, without sacrificing taste, at a mainstream price point — across new categories. That is the logic behind spinning up HallPass and Rowdy as distinct brands rather than extending the David label into candy and snacks.
"That was never the whole ambition."
Neil Shah — Partner, Greenoaks, on Medici's expansion beyond David ProteinUnderpinning the strategy is Epogee, the ingredient maker Medici acquired in 2025. Its EPG fat substitute is engineered to replicate the mouthfeel of traditional fat at a fraction of the caloric load — giving Medici a proprietary technology layer that, in principle, differentiates its brands from private-label "better-for-you" competitors that rely on off-the-shelf formulations.
Why It Matters
The "better-for-you" category has historically asked shoppers to accept a trade-off: healthier macros in exchange for weaker taste, or a lower price in exchange for a less premium formulation. Medici's pitch — and the reason investors valued it at $2.25 billion — is that it claims to remove both trade-offs at once, at a scale (35,000+ doors) that is difficult for smaller reformulation brands to reach.
For category managers and manufacturers, the more durable signal may be the "house of brands" structure itself: rather than one label stretched across categories, Medici is building several brands on a shared ingredient and operations backbone. If that model proves capital-efficient, it offers a template other food companies — including regional manufacturers exploring health-forward product lines — may look to emulate, independent of EPG itself.
What We're Watching
High-protein and "better-for-you" reformulation is a global growth category, and Gulf retailers have been expanding health-forward snacking assortments in step with broader wellness and nutrition trends. Medici's financing has no confirmed link to Saudi Arabia or the wider region. The open question worth tracking: as international "smarter foods" platforms scale and look for growth markets, does the GCC's growing appetite for high-protein, low-sugar snacking make it a plausible next stop for brands built on this model — and are regional manufacturers positioned to build comparable ingredient technology domestically?
SFT Editorial Analysis
This raise is best read as a valuation call on execution and ingredient technology, not on the protein-snacking category alone — a crowded field where several branded entrants compete for the same shelf space. The scrutiny to watch is not the financing itself but the legal and regulatory backdrop around it. Court filings reviewed by AgFunderNews show David Protein's packaging, labeling, and marketing are the subject of an active lawsuit filed by competing EPG licensees and Epogee itself in the Southern District of New York, alleging deceptive calorie claims tied to EPG. Medici has sought to have the case dismissed; the matter had not been resolved as of this writing. Investors evidently priced the round on the strength of Medici's growth and technology moat, but the outcome of that litigation is a genuine variable for the "house of brands" thesis going forward.
