Portland-based Mickleberry Gardens walked away the winner of the 2024 Oregon Angel Food competition, securing a $160,000 check from investors.
The company makes a line of products using raw honey, beeswax, bee pollen and other medicinal plants. It was up against four other companies vying for investment.
“We’re so thrilled to have this opportunity and are incredibly grateful to Oregon Entrepreneurs Network for the support and education that helped get us to this moment,” said co-founders Madelyn and Matt Morris in a written statement.
The OregonAF competition is organized by Oregon Entrepreneurs Network. The group runs a series of educational cohorts for founders of food and beverage companies. Sessions go over elements such as how to scale food distribution, funding options, and intellectual property and trademarks.
Companies that complete the education session are invited to participate in the angel investment portion of the program. For this element, OEN raises a special purpose investment vehicle from investors who then select a company to back.
Mickelberry Gardens employs about a dozen people locally.
“This is the type of community-centric business growth that is critical to the state’s economy,” said OEN Executive Director Cara Turano, in a written statement.
The other finalists were:
- Bend-based Altitude Beverages, which makes a line of nonalcoholic, CBD, canned mocktails.
- Portland-based Creole Me Up, which makes organic, allergen-free Haitian food products.
- Portland-based Plant Bomb, which makes organic, gluten and dairy-free, plant-based sauces.
- Portland-based Renata, which makes a line of frozen, wood-fired pizzas.
OregonAF is one of three education and funding programs that OEN runs each year. The other two programs are Angel Oregon Life & Bioscience and Angel Oregon Tech. OEN started launching industry-targeted Angel events in 2018.
OEN is currently raising funds the other two angel programs.
