LONDON — Iris Ventures is intensifying its focus on functional food and drink, leading a $22 million Series A investment into Reformed, a top U.K.-based brand that offers instant coffee and matcha drinks with nutritional benefits.
The investment round was oversubscribed, according to Iris, which invested alongside companies including JamJar Investments, V3 and FoodLabs. An announcement is expected today.
Reformed was founded in 2024 by Neil Saada and Neil Marrakchi, who were looking to make people’s morning routines healthier, easier and more efficient.
The brand sells pouches of instant coffee and matcha, which contain 21 vitamins and minerals, and the functional mushrooms lion’s mane and chaga. The pouches also come with 15g of collagen or 5g of creatine, depending on the consumer’s preference.
The specialty-grade arabica coffee comes caffeinated or decaf. Customers can take it black, or with vanilla or mocha flavoring. The ceremonial matcha has even more flavors, including strawberry, coconut, vanilla and blueberry. The drinks are prepared like instant coffee, can be made hot or cold, and mixed with milk or water.
Reformed operates on a subscription model and costs from 39.99 pounds a month. The brand urges customers to think of drinking its products as a wellness ritual that’s meant to be enjoyed. To that end, it offers stylish electric frothers, glass bottles, metal cans and spoons.
Iris said the investment was hard to resist. Reformed has scaled profitably to $70 million in annual revenue within two years, making it one of the fastest-growing consumer brands in Europe.
Although it’s only been in business for two years, growth — especially among health-maxing women in central London — has been robust. The company plans to use the new funds to beef up its leadership, and to launch in the U.S. in the third quarter of this year.
Florian Wojewodzki, partner at Iris Ventures, said the investment was attractive because “Reformed had the clarity to see what others missed: the wellness consumer wasn’t looking for another morning formula to create, they were looking for a healthier and better-stacked ritual.”
He said that by offering “quality, efficacy and convenience in the same cup, Reformed turned a daily habit into a beloved brand. Their explosive growth is the proof point, and we at Iris are thrilled to be partnering with them for the chapter ahead.”
Montse Suarez, founder and managing partner at Iris, said Reformed “is exactly the kind of category-defining company we were built to back. We’ve long believed the line between pharmacy and kitchen is disappearing, and Reformed is proving it by democratizing wellness, turning what used to be a luxury into an everyday habit.”
Reformed also sells electric frothers, glass bottles and metal cans to make and hold the coffee and matcha drinks.
She said companies with $70 million in revenue and profitable within two years are rare in the category. “We are proud to lead this round and to be part of what’s next,” she said.
Marrakchi, who serves as co-chief executive officer alongside Saada, said in an interview the brand is eager to get going in the U.S.
“We’re going global, we’re going to the U.S. It’s been our dream since the very first day, to be honest. We always thought of Reformed as an American brand that launched in the U.K., and our home really has to be the U.S. So here we are,” he said.
Marrakchi said the roadmap is similar to the one Reformed used in the U.K. The plan is to focus on quality ingredients, brand aesthetics, customer experience and direct-to-consumer engagement.
“We’re going to be very, very picky about where we expand and how the Reformed experience comes across. We’re taking a very sensible approach to retail, going step by step. We’re at Selfridges now, but we don’t want to go into mass retail because we want to be able to control — A to Z — how people consume our products. The accessories are so important, the way we present them is so important. We want to make sure we grow gradually, which is why online, for now, is our biggest priority,” he said.
Marrakchi and Saada both described the latest round of funding as “a vote of confidence” in their philosophy and approach “and we’re thankful to Iris and all our investors for sharing it.”
Iris specializes in disruptor consumer businesses that are life-enhancing, and has made many health and wellness investments in the past few years.
In April, it led a multimillion-dollar round of investment into Lucille Health, a science-backed, functional nutrition company that makes high-protein, high-fiber shakes that address age-related frailty, muscle loss and digestive issues tied to aging. The shakes put a particular emphasis on B vitamins, calcium and vitamin D.
An image from Reformed.
Its portfolio includes Biomel, a plant-based gut health brand; Superlativa, a plant-based, drug- and hormone-free supplement that aims to help regulate women’s levels of cortisol, and Maurten, a global sports nutrition company based in Sweden that specializes in high-energy foods.
Last year Iris published “Longevity Through Nutrition,” a report pointing out that everyday people of all ages — not just multibillionaires — are looking for small, consistent ways to live healthy, vibrant lives for as long as possible. It also led a multimillion-dollar investment into Healf, the slick online platform selling premium wellness products tailored to customers’ specific needs.
Iris said its investments derive from the core belief that “the biggest winners will be brands that make being healthy simple, enjoyable and accessible to everyone, not just the wellness elite. We remain hyper-focused on backing propositions that solve real problems, often with products that didn’t exist before.”
Iris recently launched Fund 2, a 200 million-euro vehicle, and said its ambition is to “double down on the longevity and wellness categories,” which it helped to pioneer.
