We no longer have to search for food so much; however, not only do people enjoy digging up wild mushrooms and other foods, consumers are just as excited to eat them. Get into forageda market to buy wild and specialty foods from independent collectors and farmers.

Mushrooms are big business: Companies like smallholding and Adapt agricultural technology bring a vertical farming approach to growing mushrooms. Others, including foods with meat and fable food turn mushrooms into alternatives to meat, while mycoworks create leather replacements from them.

Jack Hamrick and Andy Conner founded Foraged in 2021 to address rising food prices and supply chain disruptions and help small business owners get a piece of the world mushroom marketwhich is expected to be valued at $127 billion by 2030.

“We are growing, not despite economic fears and inflationary pressures, but because of the challenges,” Hamrick told TechCrunch. “We allow consumers to buy food directly from family businesses, rather than profit-seeking multinational corporations. By eliminating almost the entire supply chain, consumers save money and small businesses grow. We are still seeing huge consumer tailwinds because people want to eat differently and want truly natural, healthy, sustainable and unique foods, and that is what Foraged unlocks.”

In 2022, Foraged launched after a $200,000 Pre-Seed Round which included investors such as celebrity chef and restaurateur Tom Colicchio. At that time hundreds of people signed up to sell items and more than 500 customers were buying them.

The company vets its vendors and offers them a mobile app that manages the entire e-commerce experience, from product listing to payments, shipping, and local pickups.

One year later, the site has tens of thousands of new customers and the number of repeat customers has increased by more than 1,000%. In addition, the company has experienced revenue growth of more than 400% from clients in the United States and Puerto Rico.

In addition to mushrooms and specialty products, such as honey, oils, and jams, Foraged’s market has grown to include eggs, meat, dairy, and seafood.

“We recently started eating meat and seafood for the first time a few months ago,” Hamrick said. “Now we have everything from wild cod to lobster, some dips made to order. The person will send a message, ‘thanks for the order, I’m going to put on the wetsuit’”.

All of that has attracted even more investors who recently pumped $2.7 million in seed money into Foraged. Bessemer Venture Partners led the round and was joined by Yelp co-founder and CEO Jeremy Stoppelman, StubHub co-founder Eric Baker, Shopify President Harley Finkelstein, and Fiverr founder and CEO Micha Kaufman. In total, the company has raised $3 million.

Hamrick intends to implement the new capital in creating additional tools and features for sellers and buyers. Foraged has eight full-time employees, including a Noma chef with Michelin experience, and hopes to bring in more engineers.

“We have some exciting product announcements coming up, and we’re finally doing some marketing,” Hamrick said. “No other tech company is doing this, let alone in a platform marketplace setup, and to be able to marry those tools that aren’t being addressed in the marketplace right now, with the network that we’ve already established in the marketplace, it’s a great unlock for success.”