CircleUp raises $125 million fund to invest in consumer goods

San Francisco-based CircleUp has raised $125 million for a new fund that will invest in early-stage consumer packaged goods startups with between $1 million and $10 million in revenue.

Anti-unicorn: Despite all the buzz around CPG companies like Honest Company, which have raised buckets of venture capital in the pursuit of unicorn status, CircleUp is taking a more modest approach. "We don't like the valuations of that model and we don't like the winner-take-all mentality of that model," says CircleUp co-founder and COO Rory Eakin. Instead, CircleUp is looking to invest a few million dollars into companies that could sell for $100 million to $500 million.