Jiminy Cricket!

Cricket Protein Bars Just Secured $1 Million in Funding

Good with a little cashew and a little ginger.
Good with a little cashew and a little ginger. Photo: Butterfly Hunter/Shutterstock

Entrepreneurs Gabi Lewis and Greg Sewitz, the two Ivy League grads who sell protein-packed energy bars made with finely ground cricket flour that just so happen to also be totally kosher, have just closed on an ambitious $1.2 million seed round. Investors include Collaborative Fund and Start Garden, which have previously helped uplift everything from Uber to, well, Lyft. Tim Ferriss is also onboard, and though the broader bug-cuisine sector is burgeoning, in New York at least, the author and media tycoon said that opportunities like this one come “along perhaps once every few decades.” So then, is it time for everyone to start eating bugs yet?

The company’s blueberry-vanilla, apple cinnamon, PB&J;, and cacao bars — all made with organic-leaning and finely milled crickets — are already available at some retail locations, and also direct through Exo’s site or as part of a monthly subscription. Kyle Connaughton, the modernist-type chef who developed the company’s recipes, is apparently now working on new ways to turn the sustainable and environmentally friendly protein source into other delicious things.

“We’ve only scratched the surface of insects as food. The possibilities are massive,” Lewis said in a statement. Sewitz, in the meantime, said protein bars are “just the tip of the iceberg” for the company, so there’s at least some chance that boxes of precooked cricket burgers will be stocked in your grocery store freezers by the end of 2015.

Related: How Do You Get People to Eat Crickets? It Might Help If They’re Kosher [Daily Intelligencer]

Cricket Protein Bars Just Secured $1 Million in Funding