SUPERBREWED: SELLING THE FUTURE OF PROTEIN
Superbrewed Food had raised $24M to commercialize an entirely new category of protein—but needed to quickly raise a seed extension. Their existing deck was technical and buried in ingredient-level attributes that made sense to industry experts but not to investors. Otto rebuilt their story from the ground up, shifting the narrative from “yet another alternative protein” to a category-defining reframing of the entire protein market: What if protein is just getting started? He also resurrected the remarkable origin story—how a question about gorillas’ diets led to the discovery of one of the most nutritionally complete proteins on Earth. With the new story and deck, investor response surged and Superbrewed closed a $10M seed extension.
The Background
Superbrewed is one of the most promising companies in food-tech, with a microbial-fermentation-derived protein that is nutritionally dense, neutral in taste, and dramatically easier to scale than precision fermentation. Investors already liked the core technology and team, but the original pitch deck focused on technical differentiators, concentration percentages, and ingredient specs. It didn't tell the big story about why the world needs a new protein.
The Challenge
The protein market is incredibly fragmented. Every application—sports nutrition, dairy, plant-based, medical, baked goods—requires its own blend of attributes such as solubility, texture, heat stability, cost, or amino acid profile. This complexity led Superbrewed to describe themselves in terms of micro-optimizations and technical features. That meant:
No overarching narrative
No clear reason why this company will win
No articulation of why the world needs a new protein
A pitch that felt like another incremental ingredient, rather than a fundamental breakthrough
Superbrewed didn’t need a different story about protein applications. They needed a story about protein itself.
The Outcome
Otto rebuilt the narrative using a broader approach that posed and answered broader questions:
What if protein is just getting started? Every major food category is limited by protein’s shortcomings. What if we invented a better one? This shift moved Superbrewed from “alternative protein” to fundamental food infrastructure.
Why should cows define protein? Cows are a 10,000-year-old technology that accidentally set the benchmark for protein quality. What if we had access to a protein that was nutritionally complete, had a neutral taste, was scalable via existing infrastructure, naturally enriched with vitamins and minerals. In other words, a protein with no trade-offs?
Why are gorillas so strong? The old deck didn't include the company's compelling origin story: Superbrewed began with the question of how gorillas—one of the strongest mammals on Earth—build muscle on low-value leaves and twigs. The answer led to discovering the microflora that became the core of Superbrewed’s technology.
The Result
Investor response shifted immediately. Instead of technical debates about yield and functionality, conversations centered on market transformation and category creation. Superbrewed closed its $10M seed extension, giving it the runway to reach commercial production and launch with major CPG partners.
