Investors / United States / Barrel Ventures
Barrel Ventures
Venture capital · Evanston, IL, United States · North America
Barrel Ventures is a seed-stage venture fund based in Evanston, Illinois, that invests in companies addressing food industry problems. It focuses on better-for-you consumer brands, food and ingredient technology, supply chain and innovation, and vertical AI for CPG and food enterprises.
Invests inFood & AgricultureAI & Machine LearningE-commerce & Marketplaces
In its own wordsfoodbeverageingredient technologysupply chainvertical aiconsumer brands
Your fit with Barrel Ventures
Four questions about your startup
See how your round matches what it backs, point by point.
Or find every investor that fitsBarrel Ventures lists 35 checked portfolio companies on its own site and is named in 5 funding rounds. Its most frequent entry is Seed, 67% of the companies with a known first round. Its largest themes are Food & Agriculture (23%), AI & Machine Learning (23%) and E-commerce & Marketplaces (16%). 80% of its companies are based in United States. It invests most often alongside 11 Tribes Ventures, BFG Partners and Dorm Room Fund.
Counts come from funding rounds that name Barrel Ventures, complete from mid-2025: earlier rounds appear only when they were reported later. Round amounts and full round histories are on Fundup AI.
Round figures show recent activity, not Barrel Ventures' whole history. Rounds on record name 4 companies; its own site lists 35. Funding rounds are complete from mid-2025, so counts and the yearly trend undercount a firm that invested before then. The portfolio, themes and places come from its own site and are not affected.
Entry stage
share of companies by the stage of its first roundShow as a table
| Value | |
|---|---|
| Pre-seed | 0% |
| Seed | 67% |
| Series A | 33% |
| Series B | 0% |
| Growth | 0% |
Activity by year
rounds it joined, last 10 yearsShow as a table
| Total | Rounds it led | |
|---|---|---|
| '17 | 0 | 0 |
| '18 | 0 | 0 |
| '19 | 0 | 0 |
| '20 | 0 | 0 |
| '21 | 0 | 0 |
| '22 | 0 | 0 |
| '23 | 0 | 0 |
| '24 | 0 | 0 |
| '25 | 3 | 0 |
| '26 | 2 | 0 |
Investor profile
percentile among all firmsShow as a table
| Measure | Percentile of all firms | Value |
|---|---|---|
| Portfolio size | 73th | 35 companies |
| Recent activity | 69th | 2 rounds in 12 months |
| Early stage | 80th | 67% of entries at pre-seed or seed |
| Evidence | 73th | 9% of companies confirmed by a round |
| Sector focus | 28th | 23% in its largest sector |
| Reach | 78th | 5 countries |
Investment themes
share of its checked companiesThis firmAll checked companies
Show as a table
| This firm | All checked companies | |
|---|---|---|
| Food & Agriculture | 23% | 3% |
| AI & Machine Learning | 23% | 18% |
| E-commerce & Marketplaces | 16% | 6% |
| Healthcare & Biotech | 14% | 15% |
| Industrial & Manufacturing | 9% | 7% |
| Fintech | 5% | 12% |
| Enterprise Software | 4% | 8% |
| Consumer | 4% | 3% |
Invests most often with
firms sharing its portfolio companiesShow as a table
| Share | |
|---|---|
| 11 Tribes Ventures | 2 |
| BFG Partners | 2 |
| Dorm Room Fund | 2 |
| Founder Collective | 2 |
| Left Lane Capital | 2 |
| Matchstick Ventures | 2 |
| Platinum Mile Ventures | 2 |
| Soma Capital | 2 |
Its portfolio companies
where they are based, and what their own sites showSite status
- Site answers3189%
- No longer answers00%
- Points to another company411%
- Parked or sold domain00%
A site that stops answering three checks in a row is counted as no longer answering; that is not proof of closure. A site that points to another company is often an acquisition.
Co-investor network
who it backs companies with, and who they back togetherAll co-investors or Compare portfolios with 11 Tribes Ventures
Compare Barrel Ventures head to head
portfolio size, rounds, entry stages, themes and the companies both backThree or more firms at once: portfolio overlap.
Recent portfolio activity
when companies last raised with Barrel Ventures| Date | Company | Stage |
|---|---|---|
| 22 Sept 2026 | Series B | |
| 12 Mar 2026 | Round | |
| 22 Oct 2025 | Seed | |
| 15 Oct 2025 | Seed | |
| 11 Aug 2025 | Series A |
Round details for Barrel Ventures
Amounts, full round histories and every co-investor in Barrel Ventures' rounds are on Fundup AI. VCinfo covers investors and their portfolios.
Portfolio
35 companies checked against their own sites| Company | What it does | Themes | First round with it | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bakr sells cookie dough products | Food & Agriculture | Portfolio page | ||
| Celleste Bio creates a proprietary 'cocoa technology' that produces 100% real cocoa ingredients at scale, anywhere in the world, using biotech, agtech, and AI | Food & AgricultureAI & Machine Learning | Portfolio page | ||
| CommanderAI provides a CRM and prospecting solution for waste, recycling, and scrap haulers | Industrial & ManufacturingAI & Machine Learning | Oct 2025Seed | Page + round | |
| Confido provides AI infrastructure for consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands to manage finance, sales, and operations | AI & Machine LearningEnterprise Software | Aug 2025Series A · 2 rounds | Page + round | |
| The company sells vitamin subscriptions and related products made from real food. | Healthcare & Biotech | Portfolio page | ||
Enterprise SoftwareE-commerce & Marketplaces | Mar 2026Round | Funding round | ||
| DocUnlock automates customs clearance with AI-powered document processing for customs brokers and freight forwarders | Industrial & ManufacturingFintech | Portfolio page | ||
| The company produces and sells prebiotic soda. | Food & Agriculture | Portfolio page | ||
| Partake Brewing sells non-alcoholic beers and provides recipes to pair with them. | Food & Agriculture | Portfolio page | ||
| GoNanas sells banana bread mixes and related products online. | Food & Agriculture | Portfolio page | ||
| FruitScout provides a platform for managing labor, crops, and compliance for high-value crops | AI & Machine LearningAI & Machine Learning | Portfolio page | ||
| Gainful Health sells products online with options for subscription and free shipping | Healthcare & BiotechE-commerce & Marketplaces | Portfolio page | ||
| Paloma provides an instant checkout service for sales on Instagram and other platforms | E-commerce & MarketplacesFintech | Portfolio page | ||
| Clove sells shoes and related accessories for healthcare workers and others. | Healthcare & BiotechE-commerce & Marketplaces | Portfolio page | ||
| Therma provides mechanical, fabrication, and HVAC services, including maintenance, design, and engineering | Industrial & Manufacturing | Portfolio page | ||
| Hetal audits and analyzes store shelves using Computer Vision AI to help retailers optimize merchandising and increase sales. | AI & Machine LearningE-commerce & Marketplaces | Portfolio page | ||
| Iris provides AI-powered financial planning, reporting, and benchmarking solutions for consumer brands | FintechAI & Machine Learning | Portfolio page | ||
| Jumbotail operates a B2B marketplace and new retail platform for food and grocery in India | E-commerce & MarketplacesFood & Agriculture | Portfolio page | ||
| Kea provides voice AI technology for restaurants to manage orders and customer interactions | Food & AgricultureAI & Machine Learning | Portfolio page | ||
| Kimba develops and sells a sleep system that uses personalized scent therapy to improve sleep quality. | Healthcare & BiotechConsumer | Portfolio page |
About this data
site last read 5 Nov 2026- Site
- barrelvc.com
- Last read
- 5 Nov 2026
- Watching since
- 6 Nov 2026
- Rounds since
- 11 Aug 2025
- Companies checked
- 35
Rates come from what VCinfo has observed since observation_start. Firms tend to remove companies that closed, so early rates understate reality. A company leaving a portfolio page does not mean it closed or exited. An unreachable site means our checks failed, nothing more.
Get Barrel Ventures' profile as data
Pull Barrel Ventures' portfolio, co-investors and changes through one API key or MCP, open every portfolio row, compare it with other firms, and get an email when it adds a company or files a fund.
Work email, sign-in link by email. Already have an account? Log in- Ask AI5 plain-English investor searches a day
- Full listsEvery portfolio row and two-firm overlap
- API and MCP100 REST or MCP calls a month, one key
- AlertsFollow 5 investors for portfolio and fund changes
$ curl -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" \
https://api.vcinfo.io/v1/firms/barrelvc.com
# also
GET /v1/firms/barrelvc.com/portfolio
GET /v1/firms/barrelvc.com/coinvestors
GET /v1/firms/barrelvc.com/news