Manhattan’s Seed-Funded Foodies

In pursuit of a more sustainable protein form, a New York City duo has uncovered an unorthodox source: crickets.

Words: Kiera Aaron
Images: David Urbanke

Ever ate a cricket? Probably not. But Gabi Lewis is out to change that. “Most protein sources come with a compromise — you either have nutritionally-dense animal protein that’s incredibly energy-inefficient, or plant protein that’s better for the environment but not as good nutritionally,” says Lewis. Enter crickets, a complete protein that’s easy on the environment and high in vitamins and minerals.

Lewis first realized this as a college student at Brown University. He was a competitive powerlifter at the time, and frustrated with his limited protein options. Then, Lewis’s roommate and now Exo cofounder, Greg Sewitz, came home from a conference at MIT in Boston that touched on the benefits of insects as food. “The more I looked into it, the more it made sense,” says Lewis. “There’s no real reason not to eat cricket protein; our aversion to it is all cultural.”

Lewis knew that if they were going to successfully convince people to eat crickets, they needed to make something that truly tasted good — without any distinguishable bug parts. Sure, there were novelty products on the market at the time (think: lollipops with full bugs in them), but the whole mission was to make something real. “If we made a product people didn’t like, they’d dismiss the whole category,” he says. And that’s a problem if the goal is to change what people think about insects as food on a larger scale.

“Most protein sources come with a compromise — you either have nutritionally-dense animal protein that’s incredibly energy-inefficient, or plant protein that’s better for the environment but not as good nutritionally.” — Gabi Lewis

Tackling this portion of the Exo puzzle is its third founding member, Kyle Connaughton, former chef at the Fat Duck in England, largely considered one of the best restaurants in the world. “It’d be crazy for another bar company to link up with a Michelin award-winning chef, but these bars needed to be absolutely delicious,” says Lewis.

From there, Lewis and his co-founders found that people were more receptive to the idea than they had originally predicted. “Our Kickstarter campaign went incredibly well (they raised $20,000 in just one month), which proved to investors that people would pay for crickets,” says Lewis. They were able to attract the major investors who got involved early — people who saw insects as the future, and wanted to invest at the start. Just how major? Exo received $1.2 million in seed funding from players that previously invested in companies like Blue Bottle Coffee, Uber, Alibaba and Twitter. “And we rarely meet someone who doesn’t want to give a bar a try,” says Lewis.

Bars are just the first step. “If you use a sushi analogy, we see our bar much like a California roll,” says Lewis. “It introduces people to the idea of eating raw fish, and before you know it, they’re eating sashimi.” Lewis is all about expanding Exo’s product portfolio (he won’t spill what’s next — granola? cereal?), while embracing the idea of a growing industry, even if it means more bug-based companies on the market.

After all, if the goal is to make America embrace crickets as a sustainable protein source, competitors aren’t just welcome, they’re crucial. “When you look at any other fringe food trend, like kombucha and coconut water, no single company goes mainstream until there are multiple players in the category,” says Lewis. “People always ask if we’re worried about the competition, but really, our whole mission wouldn’t work without it. The more people start making quality insect products, the better for all of us.” Bon appetit.

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