Last week, Ollie announced that it is being acquired by Agrolimen, a large Spanish based multinational company focused on consumer goods. Ollie redefined dog nutrition with high-quality, human-grade, refrigerated food tailored to each pet’s needs. Anticipating the rise of pet humanization and the fresh pet food category, the team built a trusted brand centered on clean ingredients, balanced cooking processes, and visible health outcomes—from improved digestion to shinier coats. Ollie’s personalized, minimally processed meals and its deep connection with consumers helped it become a standout leader in the $66 billion U.S. pet food market. Ollie was not only an innovator in the pet food industry but also for us as a Primary as it was the very first business we incubated.
The original idea for some of the most well known startups came from surprising places. Twitter was born out of another startup called Odeo when a then employee by the name of Jack Dorsey had an idea of a status-update/SMS service. Or when Steward Butterfield was building a multiplayer game called Glitch that flopped but the internal communication tool they built didn’t which then became Slack. Even my first company, Community Connect, which ran some of the first social networking sites including BlackPlanet.com was inspired by a conversation that I had when I was an investment banking analyst working with the founder of a company that we were trying to take public. The founder of that company had a thesis that online communities which were primarily in closed online services such as AOL were eventually going to migrate to the Web. This comment pre-dated Facebook by almost a decade and sparked me starting my company. After I sold Community Connect, I realized that I would actually be better at generating startup ideas as an investor versus when being a founder. When I was a founder, I wasn’t studying business models all day. I was laser focused on my business. I realized that ideas sometimes spawn from pattern recognition and being an investor allowed me the luxury of studying and seeing so many business patterns. The story of Ollie is an example of this pattern recognition journey.
When we first started Primary in 2015, two hot start ups in New York City were Blue Apron and Plated delivering meal kits so people can be better homecooks . Both companies started in 2012 and were growing quickly which inspired a number of other similar companies that had successful exits such as Freshly (acquired by Nestlé for $900 million) and HomeChef (acquired by Kroger for $700 million). The key insight from these wave of meal kit delivery companies was that people wanted a more convenient option for cooking for themselves and their families. This insight reminded me of when I first moved back to New York after college.
In the late 90s, I was living in a one bedroom apartment in midtown Manhattan with my dog that I brought back with me from college. There used to be a little old italian woman that lived in the building that used to hang out in the lobby. This woman would sit there every morning with her miniature doberman sitting on her lap and would love to chat with the residents as they would come in and out of the building. One morning I was coming in from taking my dog for a walk when she asked me with an Italian accent “Do you love your baby?”. I responded “Yes, I do.” which then she asked me “How old is she?”. I told her she is 3 years old. I then asked her how old her dog was. She then responded “my baby is 18 years old”. I surprisingly asked “18 human years??”. She said “Yes! My secret is that I cook for my dog!”. She then went into detail of how she cooked her dog a human meal balanced with fresh meat and vegetables for every meal. I listened but in the back of my mind I thought she was just a kooky woman and didn’t think much of it beyond just being amused.
Years later my dog passed after going through a number of health issues. I really did love my dog and I tell people that losing a pet is devastating as you do feel like it is to be, what people now call, a pet parent. One day as I was remembering my dog which got me thinking of my old neighbor and if there was any real logic in cooking for her dog. I went down the rabbit hole from a number of Google searches and then a number of books about the pet food industry. I was shocked! What I learned was most pet food is absolutely terrible made from unhealthy ingredients and way over processed. My old neighbor was right!
As an investor, you are looking for solutions that are not incrementally better by at least a 10x better product and experience than what is out there. A pet food brand made up of human grade ingredients, gently cooked, well balanced for your furry loved ones that is shipped to your doorstep instead of you having to cook yourself met that 10x better criteria. I wrote a memo for what was then called “Project Milo” and presented it to our team meeting at Primary in 2015 which is the first year of the firm and our newly minted $60 million seed fund. The team, especially my co-founder and Partner, Brad, saw my conviction in the idea and without reservation said we should incubate this.
I recently told this story this past year at an Ollie’s all hands offsite that was held in Nashville. Over 150 Olllie employees were in the audience when I told this story. A woman that worked in our customer experience team came up to me after and thanked me for starting the company as she told me that her dog had so many health problems until she started feeding her Ollie which inspired her to work at the company. I told her that she shouldn’t thank me, that I need to be thanking her and the rest of the folks in the room. I may have been the spark that started the Ollie journey but it was really the hard work and dedication of everyone in that room and in Ollie’s past that built Ollie into a $250 million business that has served millions of pet parents. It has been an honor to have been that spark and to have served on behalf of Primary as an investor and board member but the real heroes of the Ollie journey are Nick Stafford, the CEO, and the Ollie leadership team. They have delivered on the mission of redefining dog nutrition and have done it with care and excellence. The journey was far from easy as they had to innovate every part of the business from the manufacturing, supply chain and logistics to the digital experience. And they did this through incredibly uncertain times including challenging fundraises and the pandemic. The team always believed in the mission and for that the customers responded. Thank you Nick and team. Your work and dedication is so appreciated. And congratulations to Agrolimen for acquiring a terrific business. I look forward to you carrying the Ollie brand forward.