NUGGS Announces New Parent Company SIMULATE

NEW YORK, July 9, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Ben Pasternak, Founder and CEO, today announces the launch of SIMULATE, the new parent company of NUGGS, a chicken nugget simulation.

Additional funding brings total capital invested in the company to a total of $11 million. $4.1 million in new investment comes from Lerer Hippeau (via BN), AgFunder, Alexis Ohanian (co-founder of Reddit), Walter Robb (former CEO of Whole Foods), and Jasmine Tookes (the model and Victoria's Secret Angel.)

"We're pumped to launch new nutrition technologies over the next few months under our new parent company, SIMULATE," says Pasternak. "NUGGS is just a taste of what the future holds, with new products around the corner."

SIMULATE's first product, NUGGS, is a chicken nugget simulation made from plant inputs. Since it  launched in the summer of 2019, NUGGS evolved into the fastest growing nugget company in the world with sales growing 10X in the last 6 months. SIMULATE is currently developing new nutrition technologies, including Spicy NUGGS and DOGGS, that will launch later in the year.

SIMULATE's existing investors include McCain Foods, Rainfall Ventures, Maven Ventures, NOMO Ventures, Bob Pittman (Founder of MTV, CEO of iHeartMedia), and Neil Parikh (Founder of Casper).

Thierry Saint-Denis, formerly Senior Director of Research & Innovation at Danone, joined as the company's Chief Technology Officer. In this role, Saint-Denis will be responsible for leading the development of SIMULATE's new nutrition technologies. Saint-Denis has spearheaded the development of new foods products currently worth more than $900M yearly sales in North America and has more than 14 patents in his name in the fields of functional ingredients, probiotics, enzyme & strained nutrition technology, and food sweetening systems.

"I'm beyond thrilled to join the SIMULATE team. The food system is in need of a complete reinvention and we think the best way to change it is to recreate the products we like, using and advancing what nature gave us with better technology," said Saint-Denis.

About Ben Pasternak

20-year-old Pasternak is well known for being the youngest tech entrepreneur to receive VC funding from Silicon Valley, when he was just 15. After his first company Monkey was acquired in 2017, Pasternak turned his attention to the nutrition space, launching NUGGS, a chicken nugget simulation. NUGGS raised $7 million in funding, led by McCain Foods.

Media Contact:
Tati Esposito
Dini von Mueffling Communications
[email protected]

SOURCE SIMULATE