Seattle Startup Zucca Raises $5M to Accelerate Food Product Development With AI

Seattle Startup Zucca Raises $5M to Accelerate Food Product Development with AI

Karen Huh brings 20 years of experience launching consumer products for brands like Starbucks and Bulletproof Coffee. When she encountered a prototype from Pioneer Square Labs (PSL) that applied AI to speed up product launches, she immediately saw its potential. “It was a light bulb that went off,” Huh recalled.

Huh is now CEO and co-founder of Zucca, a Seattle-based startup and PSL spinout that recently emerged from stealth with a $5 million seed funding round. Zucca’s platform uses generative AI to transform how food and beverage companies develop new products, shifting from a sequential process to one where multiple stages happen simultaneously.

Rather than waiting for concept creation, research and development, sourcing, and business planning to occur one after another, Zucca centralizes these steps in a single workspace. It pulls together internal and external data, automates key tasks, and keeps track of changing details in real time. The result is a streamlined approach to product development that Huh likens to a “symphony orchestra” instead of a relay race.

Changing How Product Development Happens

Instead of competing with other startups, Zucca’s main challenge is replacing traditional productivity tools like Google Docs and Excel. “We’re enabling folks to get smarter, catch things before they fall through the cracks, and be able to do so much more than they would have been able to do before,” Huh said.

The platform also helps reduce risk during product development. By enabling teams to explore multiple ideas in parallel, Zucca lets companies avoid putting all their resources behind a single concept. “Zucca provides the ability to take a deeper run at a number of concepts in parallel, so that you don’t have to put all your eggs in one basket,” she explained.

Built on Advanced AI Models

Zucca can generate new product concepts within minutes, guided by product guardrails. The platform integrates models from OpenAI and Anthropic to create an AI architecture specifically designed to support food and beverage product workflows, said COO and co-founder Jesse Guzman.

Interest in AI-driven product innovation is growing. For example, CPG giant Clorox recently used AI to speed up development of Hidden Valley Ranch flavors and other products.

Target Market and Team

Zucca is focusing on mid-market CPG brands and R&D firms. The company currently has about a dozen beta users and is moving towards paid customers.

• Karen Huh, CEO and co-founder, was previously CEO at Joywell Foods.
• Jesse Guzman, COO and co-founder, was a principal at PSL and has experience at Rain, NerdWallet, and Prophet.

Zucca has a small team of five employees and was previously highlighted in a startup spotlight.

Funding and Support

The $5 million seed round was led by Acre Venture Partners and included PSL Ventures, AIStudio Fund (backed by Mayfield), Sugar Mountain Capital (the holding company behind Beecher’s Handmade Cheese), and other angel investors.

Lucas Mann, managing partner at Acre Venture Partners, shared that early feedback from customers was overwhelmingly positive, which accelerated their decision to invest and support the company’s growth.