Healthy start to capital raise

Venture capital investor and entrepreneur Chris Cogan doesn't hold back when he talks about his latest business, Sarasota-based sustainable food company Healthy Earth.

The business, Cogan says, is at the cusp of a revolution in how Americans think about and buy food. Healthy Earth took its first step toward that thesis late last year, when it bought a Siberian sturgeon and caviar operation from Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota. On eight acres on a rural part of Fruitville Road east of Interstate 75, the facility is one of the largest in the country that harvests and packages caviar eggs in-house.

In early July, Healthy Earth embarked on another big step: a $25 million capital raise. Cogan, CEO at Healthy Earth, says interest in funding the company's future projects has been robust, and it comes from both individuals and companies. He recently came back from road shows in London and New York. Up next: Hong Kong and California. “We are getting interest from people all over the globe,” Cogan tells Coffee Talk.

Cogan says potential investors, including officials with Healthy Earth's parent company, Seven Holdings, want in on the sustainable food promise. To Cogan, that's agriculture and aquaculture practices that use current resources without compromising future needs. At Healthy Foods the goal is to eventually build a large-scale commercial sustainable food operation that makes and sells everything from vegetables to seafood.

Potential investors, adds Cogan, are also drawn to Healthy Earth because the initial money for the business comes from Seven Holdings, a team of experienced and prominent investors, officials and business leaders. The list includes Whole Foods Chairman John Elstrott; former Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, who also served in the Florida Senate and U.S. House of Representatives; and Ross Barrett, a general partner at Seven Holdings who was part of Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal's Small Business and Entrepreneurship transition team in 2007.

“Investors know our partners are capable of building a big, viable and successful organization,” says Cogan. “It's not like we are a group of students with a professor and a great idea.”