Immi is an Asian-American food brand that makes the world's first low-carb, high-protein and fully plant-based instant ramen. Kevin Lee, co-founder of immi, joined Cheddar News to discuss the company, which is backed by tennis superstar Naomi Osaka, R&B singer Usher and speed skater Apolo Ohno.

Immi is an Asian-American food brand that makes the world's first low-carb, high-protein and fully plant-based instant ramen. Kevin Lee, co-founder of immi, joined Cheddar News to discuss the company, which is backed by tennis superstar Naomi Osaka, R&amp;B singer Usher and speed skater Apolo Ohno.

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Vegan Ramen Brand Startup Immi Raises $10M in Serie A Financing

Let's take a look at another startup, shaking things up in the startup, serving up plant based ramen. This sounds good. Raising 10 million in a series a round led by touch capital around also had participation from big name, celebrities like Naomi Osaka, tennis star Usher and Apollo Ono Ime says it's plant based instant ramen as fewer carbs, more protein than traditional ramen. And the startup also saying it aims to reinvent Asian American foods with added nutrition. So joining me now is Kevin Lee, co founder of Emi Kevin. It's great to have you on the show. So before we talk about what your company offers, of course, I have to ask you about the big story surrounding Silicon Valley Bank, its recent collapse. Did you have exposure? And if so to what extent? Yeah, we actually had about 50% of our capital that we recently raised within SVB luckily Thursday morning, one of our founder friends actually got a warning from his investors and we were able to get our capital out just in the nick of time before they started freezing deposits with withdrawals. And so we were able to warn as many people as possible. Um but I think we definitely got a little lucky with that situation and now we're definitely hedging our risk by opening accounts with some of the top four banks. Um Okay, what are those banks? For example, we are in the process of a commercial account opening with jpmorgan Chase. We are evaluating whether we need to open one with like the city banks in the world. Um There's a few other smaller banks like Mercury, which is more popular in the tech scene that we're also opening with that have very high F D I C insurance limits, but it's really just about spreading, spreading across our capital and ensuring that this doesn't Black Swan event like this doesn't affect us in the future. Yeah, we'll get to your company in just a moment. My final question on this topic though, Jimmy is a class action lawsuit actually filed against SVB Financial in the wake of this is your company part of that, its Chief financial officer and CEO as well for not properly disclosing risks. We are not part of that. Um For us, we believe that SVB was a trusted partner to the startup ecosystem. They took a chance on us um in the early days when we, you know, no other bank might, you know, take a chance on working with a startup and um we honestly have loved working with their team and um it's, it's a tragic loss for the startup community and just general community as well. Kevin. Such good color there. Thank you so much. Talk to me more about your company. Obviously, you've got backing from major celebrities. Yeah, we are definitely very fortunate to have some of these legends across their industries. Supporting Emi Emi is um an Asian American food brand that makes the world's first low carb, high protein and fully plant based instant ramen. It's pretty fascinating. The instant ramen industry is about 52 billion. You get most of the traditional instant ramen giants have not changed their formulas in the past 60 years. And so people all around the world still love eating instant ramen. Yet they're looking for something, a healthier option that doesn't make them feel as guilty. And that's exactly what we provide. I love this. Let's talk about a price point how consumers can get their hands on some of this ramen. You can find us both online on our website and he eats dot com or on places like Amazon thrive market. A few of those online wholesale channels were also in retail freaking mortar stores like whole foods. The fresh market Wegmans will be in sprouts later this year as well. Why was plant based important to you? I know obviously there usually is a protein component in Ramen. Yeah, we actually realized early on that we have the capacity to recreate a lot of the meat based flavors we loved with plant based ingredients and for us, a big mission at me is to make nutrition more accessible. And so we felt that if we made our products fully plant based, we would just make healthy, delicious, instant ramen available to more people nationwide. I'd say another big portion of this is that both my co founder and I and our families, our parents specifically have actually switched to more plant forward diets in the recent years just because of chronic health conditions that have affected both of our families. It's also a big inspiration behind why we wanted to start any gluten free noodles. Is that an option? Not yet? Um gluten free is unfortunately very difficult to do um with low carb ingredients and so it's something that a lot of customers have requested it maybe on a future roadmap but no immediate plans. Alright, Kevin Lee, I like it on plant forward as well. You let me know when that gluten free option comes. We appreciate the time Kevin Lee, co founder of Emi.