McLean frozen food brand 8 Myles Inc. is closing a $1.05 million seed round this week to expand its operations and hire its first-ever full time employee.
Co-founded by Myles Powell in 2015, 8 Myles makes frozen homestyle macaroni and cheese dinners that use no preservatives or artificial ingredients. It was in the process of raising money for the seed round that Powell began to hone his pitch to investors, emphasizing an ingredient label in which "you can pronounce all the words."
"It's not a science project, just real food," said Powell, its CEO. “I think once that started to click, our strategy changed with fundraising and that's what got the interest from investors."
Powell didn't start out making mac and cheese. When he founded the company, he planned to produce and sell eight different barbecue sauces — hence the name 8 Myles — before realizing that mac and cheese was his true specialty.
It marked the second major pivot for Powell in his entrepreneurship journey. His college degree is in civil engineering, but Powell always had a passion for cooking and decided to make it his career after landing a spot on "America’s Best Cook," a Food Network program that showcases amateur chefs.
Today, 8 Myles sells three flavors of its mac and cheese — homestyle, barbecue and Buffalo — in nearly 1,000 stores nationwide, ranging from national chains such as Target and Whole Foods, to smaller grocers including Balducci's and Streets Market. The company generated $350,000 in revenue in 2022 and Powell said it's on pace to top $1 million this year.
Still, success wasn't immediate, even for a contestant on a national TV show.
“It's funny when I think back to 2013, I was thinking 'give me two or three years, I'll be killing it. I'll be everywhere,'” Powell said. “That's not how it goes most of the time, especially if you don’t know any better. If you don’t have the resources about the industry it's going to take you a long time.”
His decade-long journey took him from Pennsylvania to D.C., where he learned from founders of other food startups, like Mason Dixie Biscuit's Ayeshah Abuelhiga and Sweetkiwi’s Ehime Eigbe, and tapped the resources of small business development organizations like SCORE to learn the ropes of building a company.
“It's been a huge roller coaster, more downs than ups, Powell said. “I've seen zeroes in my bank account more times than I can count. I think what's even harder is knowing that there's a career for me outside of this."
Powell started raising funds for the seed round in 2021. While there is had no lead investor, he did land a $200,000 investment from Virginia Venture Partners, as well as investments from Andreesen Horowitz in Menlo Park, California, early-stage investment nonprofit Bronze Valley in Birmingham, Alabama, and Kompass Ventures in Ohio.
Powell plans to use the funds to hire a full-time staffer to handle marketing and sales and a part-timer to focus on operations and manage the relationship with 8 Myles' manufacturing partner, Top Chef Meals in Elmsford, New York.
“A misconception is once you get on the shelf, you’re good to go. That’s just the start,” Powell said. “You have to make sure people are aware of it, find it and want to buy it."
