2025 Rewind - How This Entrepreneur Raised $22 Million For Pasta Sauce Brand Sauz

Troy Bonde and his cofounder, Winston Alfieri, are taking aim at America’s estimated $2.5 billion (sales) pasta sauce market. Their brand, Los Angeles–based Sauz, has attracted younger shoppers with creative combos like miso-garlic and hot honey marinara—flavors far from traditional red-sauce Italian-American cuisine. “We try to identify flavor trends across categories that are familiar enough that we don’t necessarily have to go educate consumers on,” says Bonde, Sauz’s CEO. The pair has raised nearly $22 million from VCs and is on track to make $15 million in revenue by the end of 2025. Bonde and Alfieri initially partnered during the pandemic making a hand sanitizer dispenser that doubled as a thermometer. To conserve cash, they lived on pasta. Soon, they grew tired of limited flavor options and, as Covid faded, pivoted from sanitizer to sauce. Today, their jars are sold in 8,000 retail locations such as Whole Foods, Sprouts and Target.

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