Who owns Misfits Market? Ownership structure explained (2026)

Misfits Market is an online grocery company that started with a simple idea: buy up the fruit and vegetables that grocery stores reject for looking wrong, then sell them to shoppers at a discount. That "ugly produce" subscription box grew into a full online grocery service that ships thousands of items, from pantry staples to meat and its own private-label brand, to homes across most of the United States.

The question of who owns Misfits Market is different from the question you would ask about a public grocer or a subsidiary brand. There is no ticker to look up and no parent conglomerate on the org chart. Misfits is a standalone private company, funded by venture capital and still run by the founder who started it. Ownership is split among that founder, the employees who hold equity, and a group of investment firms that wrote large checks between 2019 and 2021.

Understanding that structure matters because it explains how Misfits makes decisions. A founder-led private company with patient, growth-focused backers can trade short-term profit for scale in a way a public company under quarterly pressure often cannot. This article traces the ownership from Abhi Ramesh and his early backers through the funding rounds, the Imperfect Foods deal, and the strategic choices that ownership shapes.

Misfits Market was founded in 2018 by Abhi Ramesh and is headquartered in Philadelphia, with a large fulfillment and cold-storage operation in New Jersey. The original product was a weekly subscription box of organic produce that did not meet the size or cosmetic standards of traditional retail, sold at a steep discount to reduce food waste and pass savings to shoppers.

The business has since grown well beyond ugly produce. Misfits now runs a broad online grocery platform selling fresh food, pantry goods, meat, seafood, and household essentials, alongside its own private-label brand, Odds & Ends. By early 2026 the company reported roughly $500 million in annual revenue, with only about $50 million of that coming from the surplus produce it was founded on and another $50 million from Odds & Ends. The majority now comes from conventional grocery sales and fulfillment services.

Margins have improved as the mix shifted. Misfits reported gross margins above 40% at the end of 2025, well above the roughly 20% typical of conventional grocery chains, helped by its low-cost sourcing and direct-to-consumer model. The company is not yet profitable, a point Ramesh has framed as a deliberate choice to keep investing in growth. Putting a revenue base like that in context is the kind of exercise a business valuation calculator is built for, though the private figures below carry real uncertainty.

Misfits Market is privately held. It has not filed for an initial public offering, it does not trade on any exchange, and it is not owned by a parent company. That places its ownership entirely in private hands: the founder, current and former employees who hold stock or options, and the venture capital and growth investors who funded the business through its scaling years.

This structure is common for a startup that raised large private rounds during the 2020 and 2021 funding boom. It means there is no public disclosure of the full cap table, so exact ownership percentages are not available. What is public is the list of lead investors, the amounts they committed, and the valuations attached to each round, which together sketch who holds meaningful stakes.

Abhi Ramesh founded the company and remains its chairman and CEO, and he is widely reported to hold a significant equity stake. As with most venture-backed startups, that founder stake has been diluted with each funding round, because new investors receive newly issued preferred shares in exchange for their capital. The precise size of Ramesh's holding has not been disclosed.

What is clear is that Ramesh retained operational control through every round. He led the company into its largest strategic move, the Imperfect Foods acquisition, and stayed on as CEO of the combined business. Founder-led control of this kind is typical when a company is still private and the founder is seen as central to the strategy, though preferred shareholders usually hold protective rights over major decisions such as a sale or a new financing.

Misfits raised more than $526 million across four disclosed rounds. The table below lists the confirmed rounds, lead investors, and post-money valuations where reported. Amounts and valuations reflect the figures disclosed at the time of each round.

Total disclosed funding stands at about $526.5 million. No new priced round has been publicly announced since the September 2021 Series C-1, so the $2 billion figure is the last confirmed valuation, not a current one. Private valuations for online grocery companies broadly compressed after 2021, so the present figure is uncertain and has not been disclosed.

Greenoaks Capital was the earliest major backer, leading the 2019 Series A and continuing to participate in later rounds. As an early lead, Greenoaks is likely to hold one of the larger investor stakes.

Valor Equity Partners led the $85 million Series B in 2020. Valor is known for backing operations-heavy growth companies, and its lead position in an early round typically comes with a board seat and a substantial holding.

Accel and D1 Capital co-led the $200 million Series C in April 2021, the round that first pushed Misfits past a $1 billion valuation. Accel returned to participate in the Series C-1, deepening its position.

SoftBank Vision Fund 2 led the $225 million Series C-1 in September 2021, the round that valued the company at roughly $2 billion. SoftBank's Vision Fund typically takes large minority positions, so this round likely made it one of the more significant institutional holders. Other participants across the rounds included Sound Ventures and Third Kind Venture Capital.

Misfits has not filed to go public and has not publicly guided toward a specific IPO timeline. Its earlier target of reaching profitability in early 2024, set at the time of the Imperfect Foods deal, slipped, and the company has since emphasized growth over near-term profit. A path to an IPO or a sale would most likely follow sustained profitability and a clearer public-market appetite for online grocery, which has been weak since the 2021 peak. Peers such as Instacart that did go public offer a cautionary reference for how the market has valued grocery delivery.

Abhi Ramesh is the founder, chairman, and CEO, and he is the central figure in Misfits Market's control. He built the company from a produce subscription box in 2018 into a broad online grocery platform, and he led the 2022 acquisition of Imperfect Foods, becoming CEO of the merged company. As founder and a significant equity holder who has retained his leadership role through every financing, Ramesh holds more day-to-day influence over strategy than any single investor.

As a venture-backed private company, Misfits Market is governed by a board that typically includes the founder, representatives of its lead investors, and sometimes independent members. Firms that led major rounds, such as Valor Equity Partners, Accel, and SoftBank, commonly hold or held board seats or observer rights that give them a voice in major decisions. Specific board composition is not fully disclosed, so investor representation is inferred from standard venture practice rather than confirmed member by member.

Ramesh leads a management team that expanded after the Imperfect Foods acquisition, when several Imperfect executives joined Misfits. The combined leadership oversees sourcing, fulfillment and logistics, technology, and the private-label business. These executives typically hold equity through option plans, which aligns them with investors but leaves the founder and the lead funds as the largest holders.

After acquiring Imperfect Foods in 2022, Misfits set out to combine two overlapping logistics networks into a smaller set of fulfillment centers. In 2023 that consolidation led to the closure of distribution facilities and the layoff of hundreds of employees. The cuts were a business restructuring rather than a legal matter, but they drew scrutiny and highlighted the operational risk of merging two capital-intensive delivery businesses.

At the time of the Imperfect Foods deal, Ramesh projected that the combined company would eclipse $1 billion in sales and reach profitability by early 2024. That profitability target was not met, and the company has continued to operate at a loss while prioritizing growth. Missing a stated financial goal is not a regulatory issue, but for a private company it affects investor confidence and future fundraising terms, and it is a risk worth weighing alongside the growth story.

Like other perishable-goods delivery services, Misfits has faced customer complaints over produce quality, damaged or missing items, and delivery reliability, issues that come with shipping fresh food long distances. These are common operational and reputational risks in online grocery rather than confirmed legal violations, but they matter to a subscription model that depends on repeat orders.

Ownership shapes Misfits Market's strategy in a way that is hard to see from the outside, because customers interact with a grocery brand, not a cap table. The company is controlled by its founder and funded by growth investors, which gives it room to prioritize scale over profit. Ramesh has said he is comfortable trading short-term profitability for healthy growth, a stance that is far easier to hold as a founder-led private company than it would be as a public one answering to the market each quarter.

The investor base also explains the aggressive expansion. Raising more than $526 million from firms like SoftBank, Accel, and Valor gave Misfits the capital to buy Imperfect Foods outright and to build a national fulfillment network. That same capital creates pressure. Venture and growth investors eventually need a return through a sale or a public listing, and the last priced round in 2021 valued the company at $2 billion in a market that has since cooled. Bridging that gap requires either renewed growth or a durable path to profit, the kind of margin math an EBITDA calculator helps frame even before the company reaches breakeven.

Ownership also sets the competitive stakes. Misfits operates in a crowded field of online grocery and delivery players, from broad marketplaces like Instacart to curated grocers like Thrive Market and health-focused sellers like iHerb, plus fast-delivery models such as Gopuff. Mapping where a private, founder-led company like Misfits sits against those rivals is the kind of exercise a competitive analysis template is designed for. Private ownership lets Misfits pick its battles, but it also means the company must eventually prove the model can pay for itself.

For customers, private ownership is mostly invisible day to day, but it carries a trade-off. A well-funded private grocer can offer deep discounts and invest in selection and logistics without the immediate profit pressure a public company faces. The flip side is that a business still burning cash depends on continued investor support, which can shift with market conditions. That is the underlying reason ownership matters here: the same structure that funds today's low prices also ties the company's future to the patience of its backers.

Misfits Market is a private, venture-backed company. It is owned by its founder and CEO, Abhi Ramesh, by employees who hold equity, and by the venture capital and growth firms that funded it, including Greenoaks Capital, Valor Equity Partners, Accel, D1 Capital, and SoftBank Vision Fund 2. There is no parent company, and the stock is not publicly traded, so exact ownership percentages are not disclosed.

No. Misfits Market has not held an initial public offering and does not trade on any stock exchange. It remains a private company funded by venture capital. That makes it different from online grocery peers that have gone public, such as Instacart, whose shares trade on the open market.

Abhi Ramesh founded Misfits Market in 2018 in Philadelphia. He started the company selling boxes of surplus and cosmetically imperfect produce at a discount, and he still serves as chairman and CEO, leading the combined company after its 2022 acquisition of Imperfect Foods.

The largest holders are founder and CEO Abhi Ramesh and the lead investors from its major funding rounds: Greenoaks Capital (Series A), Valor Equity Partners (Series B), Accel and D1 Capital (Series C), and SoftBank Vision Fund 2 (Series C-1). Exact stakes are not public because the company is private, so these are the significant holders rather than precisely ranked percentages.

Misfits Market has raised more than $526 million across four disclosed rounds between 2019 and 2021. Its last confirmed valuation was roughly $2 billion, set at the September 2021 Series C-1 led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2. No newer priced round has been announced, and private online grocery valuations broadly fell after 2021, so the current figure is uncertain and undisclosed. By early 2026 the company reported about $500 million in annual revenue.

Yes. Misfits Market agreed to acquire its rival Imperfect Foods in September 2022, consolidating two of the largest ugly-produce and online grocery delivery services. Financial terms were not disclosed. Abhi Ramesh became CEO of the combined company, and the two networks were merged over the following year, a process that included facility closures and layoffs in 2023.