“[Ecommerce] startups need money to survive and to grow.”

Luis E. Mata and Gabriel LLaurado, the co-founders of Meat N’ Bone, were determined to democratize access to high-quality food. Their mission is to provide consumers with the best products in the world right at their doorstep. Meat N’ Bone is an omnichannel purveyor of premium quality meat, fish, dairy, wine, charcuterie, and cheese. They ensure quality by sourcing directly from specific farms and programs.

Getting high quality foods directly into the hands of consumers is a growing market for ecommerce. The Business Research Company forecasts the global food and beverage market size in 2024 will be $85.25 billion. In 2022, online sales in the food and beverage category grew by 8%.

Based in Miami, Florida, Meat N' Bone was conceptualized in 2016 and launched as an ecommerce store in 2018 with an initial investment of $15,000. The founders started their high-quality food delivery business online and with the support of Clearco have since expanded to retail outlets.

Meat N’ Bone: Turning what you love (to eat) into an ecommerce business

Luis E. Mata and Gabriel LLaurado, the co-founders of Meat N’ Bone, were driven by their passion for high-quality food. Luis likes to cook, and Gabriel likes to eat. Their mission is to provide consumers with the best products in the world right at their doorstep.

Meat N’ Bone is an omnichannel purveyor of premium quality meat, fish, dairy, wine, charcuterie, and cheese. They ensure quality by sourcing directly from specific farms and programs. The idea was born from their shared interests—Luis’s culinary passion and Gabriel’s love for eating—which led them to research the intricacies of launching a food and beverage delivery business.

Luis delved deep into understanding proteins, learning that quality goes beyond labels. He studied the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) standards and spoke with numerous farmers both in the US and abroad. Luis learned that everything from altitude, weather, soil, happiness, and health of the animals contributes to high-quality meat.

Luis focused on the logistics and Gabe on technology. Traditionally, such premium food delivery was reserved for restaurants, chefs, and grocers. Bringing this quality directly to consumers required strategic planning, espethacially for last-mile delivery. Then it was all about testing the concept….

As Gabriel explains, it was a real market test; “Let’s bring this high-quality food to regular people and see if they like it.”

Originally built out of their friend’s restaurant pantry, they launched. They believed their success rested on four pillars:

• Educate consumers on their food choices, explaining why they pay certain prices and the differences between products.
• Provide convenience and speed, allowing customers to get their orders shipped nationwide or delivered from retail stores.
• Deliver high-quality and unique food products.
• Ensure superior customer service and responsiveness from the Meat N’ Bone team.
  

The venture launched successfully and as their business grew beyond their pantry, it required investment and a larger team.

Meat N’ Bone: Funding their ecommerce business and achieving growth of 25% between 2020-2021

As their business began to grow, Meat N’ Bone began working with Brex. Brex is an AI-powered spend management platform that offers integrated corporate cards, expense management, and more. Meat N’ Bone used Brex’s credit card for their business orders.

In 2020-2021, Meat N’ Bone grew revenues approximately 25%, and knew they had to find additional funding.

Gabriel discovered Clearco when it was still Clearbanc in 2020. “I was searching for financing. We had employees, stores, and customers. We were a proven concept, yet we didn’t make enough money to please the banks. With Clearco, I connected our Shopify store and immediately discovered what our funding could be.” At the time, Meat N’ Bone used Clearco for invoice funding, which allowed it to free  up their cash-on-hand.

After a short break using Clearco’s funding, the Clearco team got in touch again with the Meat N’ Bone team in January 2024. Julie LaForge, an Account Executive at Clearco, encouraged Meat N’ Bone to continue growing with Clearco’s newly launched Invoice Funding solution.

“We got back to Clearco and started funding more and more invoices. Clearco became part of our finance stack. Customer service is one of the best at Clearco."

Gabriel LLaurado, Meat N’ Bone

Clearco was a good way for Meat N’ Bone to leverage funding to further their growth. Cash-on-hand was spent quickly – on everything from packaging to the customer experience to inventory, and it was all part of the full package that enabled Meat N’ Bone to gain customers and maintain loyalty.

“Startups are difficult and there are so many finance-related questions throughout the process. Is it time to get an investor? Or bootstrap? The most important factor for growth is cash – how do you grow without it? Clearco fits into this landscape by supporting businesses that are onto something but can’t finance through traditional means.”

Gabriel LLaurado, Meat N’ Bone

Meat N’ Bone: Using Clearco to fund 10% of inventory

Meat N’ Bone uses Clearco to fund their inventory and items that support their inventory, such as branded packaging. They look to fund investments that don’t have an immediate return on investment (ROI), but have a big impact on the business itself.

As well, Meat N’ Bone continues to use Brex’s credit for some advertising spend or smaller transactions for the business as well as procurement of goods.

On an annual basis, over the years Clearco has funded anywhere from 10-20% of Meat N’ Bones inventory, though this varies month-over-month and based on seasonality. Meat N’Bone doubles its Clearco funding, for example, to accommodate the holiday season and related increase in orders.

"Meat N’ Bone is prepared to continue scaling their growth and has structured its business to handle it. “Our infrastructure can support double or triple our current growth without significant investment aside from inventory and people to fulfill inventory.”

- Gabriel LLaurado, Co-Founder & CMO

“Next week Meat N’ Bone will be launching a crowdfunding campaign via StartEngine, and we have only managed to get all the way here thanks to the support of Clearco. I have recommended the solution to many founders”

Luis Mata, Founder & CEO

Meat N’ Bone: Preparing for big ecommerce sales like Black Friday and Cyber Monday

Preparing for Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) weekend is top-of-mind for ecommerce brands. For Meat N’ Bone, it means finalizing recipes, content, technology, packaging… the list goes on. Everything needs to be ready by September 1 for BFCM.

Food can be a complicated line of work as freshness is paramount to inventory quality. Meat N’ Bone has to prepare by ensuring the product line is streamlined while determining the infrastructure investments needed. On top of this complex planning, the company is also preparing to launch two new physical locations in time for the busy year-end holiday season.

“We are opening up two more stores in Florida and they must be ready by September 1. Loyalty in-person is stronger and customer service is easier. Clearco funds the ecommerce side so we can have cashflow for these stores.”

- Gabriel LLaurado, Co-Founder & CMO

Meat N’ Bone: Why Clearco is important to their funding and planning and how they intend to grow beyond 7 figures

Per Gabriel LLaurado, “Access to cash is 80% of [running a successful company].” Access to funds allows companies like Meat N’ Bone to invest in their growth and stock up for big sales events.

“We don’t have another company funding us. Clearco has been the one that gives us the best terms and dynamics that work for Meat N’ Bone.”

Gabriel LLaurado, Co-Founder & CMO

Meat N’ Bone has been in operation for over six years now and is a seven figure business. Their next stage of growth looks to using Clearco as well as crowd funding and outside investors. With a goal of continuing to democratize access to quality food, they want to source additional financing options to support them in the process of driving this exciting company forward.

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What Is Meat N’ Bone?

Meat N’ Bone is an omnichannel purveyor of Premium Quality Meats for the consumer market. Meat N’ Bone is one of the biggest Japanese Wagyu retailers in the United States. They operate a DTC ecommerce business ecommerce, five (and growing!) boutique retailers, and have shipped over a quarter million orders nationwide.

Who are the founders of Meat N’ Bone?

The founding team of Meat N’ Bone is Luis Mata and Gabriel LLaurado. The business is a minority-owned company. Luis and Garbiel met when they were teenagers and eventually turned their love of food into a business. Gabriel is a computer scientist with go-to-market expertise, and Luis is a finance and operations brain.