Very few food CPG companies attract venture capital and scale nationally. This is how FoodNerd did it in Buffalo.
FoodNerd became one of Buffalo’s marquee startup stories of 2026 earlier this week when it formally announced the closure of its $7.5M Series Seed round.
The funding announcement coincided with the disclosure that FoodNerd is preparing an eventful year of rapid growth.
The company – which makes nutritious snacks for babies and toddlers based on its proprietary tech and manufacturing platform – will dramatically increase its retail footprint to 800-plus grocery stores across the country. And it will launch an e-commerce subscription plan for health-conscious families.
Attending that effort will be fullscale commercial manufacturing at FoodNerd’s new 28,000-square-foot factory in Newstead, and a major marketing effort that helps push its products across sales channels.
Here are five takeaways about Food Nerd, manufactured goods and Buffalo.
An exceptional moment
Think about all the food items sold in farmer’s markets or regionally-based stores. The vast majority of them never break out of that footprint.
Why? Because the odds of a CPG company attracting venture capital and scaling are extremely low. The company must usually have some mix of defensible product, extraordinary customer loyalty, product-market fit, sales traction, theoretically healthy margins and dovetail with existing paradigms in nutrition, wellness and distribution. A strong exit typically depends on timing a narrow window of meaningful revenue for a handful of corporations with the bankroll and will to acquire new brands.
Those are the frameworks through which venture capital firms assess whether a CPG company is worth a risky equity investment.
All of that means FoodNerd has already accomplished something rare, especially when considering it attracted Los Angeles-based venture capital to Buffalo. It’s worth taking a moment to acknowledge when a Buffalo-based team is doing something difficult on behalf of accomplishing something great.
Where belief meets talent
FoodNerd founder and CEO Sharon Cryan has been working on this concept for six full years, time which has pulled her from pilot manufacturing sites spanning Niagara Street in Buffalo to the suburbs of Cheektowaga, with many product and branding iterations along the way.
Cryan, an attorney by trade, never wavered (publicly, at least) in her belief that a team in Buffalo can take on ultraprocessed foods and make the next generation of new humans healthier.
In doing so, she became the latest template of a Buffalo-based founder whose belief supersedes the tenuous and risky nature of scalable startups. FoodNerd isn’t taking its final victory lap yet, but Cryan is a reminder that it’s important to believe local founders, and to believe in them.
Economic development playbook
Some of Buffalo’s earliest software startup companies include Campus Labs, Liazon Corp. and Synacor.
The leaders of those companies became some of the earliest investors in ACV Auctions, Buffalo’s first software unicorn which IPO’d at a $3.8B valuation in 2021. Series B will explore what we’re affectionately calling the “ACV Mafia” in more detail as the months roll along, as the economic ripple effect from ACV extends well beyond the hundreds of jobs it maintains in downtown Buffalo.
It’s worth noting that FoodNerd’s largest investor, who came back into the latest round, is Joseph Neiman, ACV’s cofounder and former CEO.
This is the economic development cycle envisioned in a robust startup economy. Who else likes the idea of Cryan cutting checks to a new generation of local founders someday?
CPG companies in Buffalo are doing pretty great
Just as FoodNerd is reaching a rarified platform in the world of CPG food startups, so too is another female-led co. based in Buffalo.
Top Seedz, which earned a $1M investment from 43North in 2021, also has national distribution for its artisan seeds and crackers. Top Seedz operates from a 35,000-square-foot factory in downtown Buffalo, where most of its 70-plus employees come from Buffalo’s refugee community via a partnership with Journey’s End Refugee Services. Top Seedz CEO Rebecca Brady recently told Series B the company grew 50% in 2025 and is entering its first Costco account in the first quarter of 2026.
Buffalo’s rich food manufacturing heritage
Perhaps an emerging cluster of manufactured goods startups in the food space makes sense in the overall scope of Buffalo’s startup community. After all, food manufacturing makes up a significant ratio of the local economy. That includes
This is far from an exhaustive list as companies from Sahlen’s to Pellicano to Nutrablend and many more serve regional customers or specific elements of the food manufacturing supply chain.
Food manufacturing is a strong muscle group in Western New York. With FoodNerd and Top Seedz, it’s not just a legacy but also part of our economic future.
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