Astō Consumer Partners Named to Inc.'s 2026 Founder-Friendly Investors list

Astō Consumer Partners brings firsthand brand-building experience, decades of industry relationships, and a flexible approach to ownership to the next generation of consumer businesses.

AUSTIN, Texas, Nov. 5, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Building a consumer brand is one thing. Scaling it is another.

The qualities that make an emerging brand successful—a differentiated product, a compelling story, and a founder's ability to do more with less—are not always the same capabilities required to scale. As distribution expands and organizations grow, entrepreneurs face a new set of decisions about capital, operations, talent, and the future of the companies they have worked to build.

The Astō team understands this distinction. The Inc. Founder Friendly Investors 2026 recognition underscores a philosophy increasingly relevant to consumer entrepreneurs: the right investment partner should bring more than capital. For Astō, that philosophy isn't a marketing position—it's the core of the investment strategy. Astō is Latin for "assist."

Co-founder Clayton Christopher, the entrepreneur behind Sweet Leaf Tea, Deep Eddy Vodka, and Waterloo, built his career creating and scaling consumer brands. In 2020, he and Brian Goldberg—his former CFO/COO at Sweet Leaf Tea and former CFO of SkinnyPop Popcorn—began investing with an operator's mindset, bringing a collective 40 years of experience to emerging brands. After four years of investing together deal-by-deal in brands including Nutrabolt (C4 Energy), Bloom, Physician's Choice, Torani, and Beatbox, the team formally launched Astō Consumer Partners in 2024 with an inaugural $345 million fund.

"What energizes us is backing the next generation of CPG entrepreneurs," said Clayton Christopher, Founder and Managing Partner of Astō Consumer Partners. "That's why our firm exists – to help disruptive brands and visionary founders reach their full potential."

That hands-on approach matters in consumer packaged goods, where scaling a brand requires coordinating commercial ambition with operational execution and financial discipline. The challenges are interconnected, the stakes evolve as a company grows, and the decisions founders face at one stage may look very different at the next. Experience builds the ability to recognize these patterns—and in a business where timing and execution drive outcomes, that judgment is a real asset.

"We've lived through the same inflection points our founders face—new retailers, new channels, new hires, new capital," said Brian Goldberg, Managing Partner of Astō Consumer Partners. "Our founders don't have to reinvent the wheel—we've already built it."

Decades of experience also create relationships—and in consumer products, relationships are consequential. Scaling a brand takes an ecosystem that extends well beyond the product: retail expertise, operational resources, and access to seasoned industry leaders. Astō's network gives founders direct access to the talent, partners, and decision-makers they need to scale.

Founders in Astō's portfolio have felt the difference firsthand.

"Scaling Clean Skin Club from a DTC powerhouse into a category-defining retail brand isn't something you do without the right partner. Astō was that partner," said Ben-David Imberman, CEO & Co-Founder, Clean Skin Club. "As former operators, they understood our mindset, matched our intensity, and shared our unyielding commitment to clinical validation and product excellence—opening the right doors with the right retailers at exactly the right time."

"Our relationship with Astō Consumer Partners is built on real trust and a shared vision for scaling a category-defining brand. Their combination of operational depth, founder-forward thinking, and long-term perspective is exactly what we were looking for in a partner," said Brian Tate, Founder & CEO, Oats Overnight. "They have strong intuition on innovation and understand the omnichannel playbook, which has helped Oats Overnight scale profitably while staying relentlessly focused on our customers."

About Astō Consumer Partners

Astō Consumer Partners is an Austin, Texas–based growth equity firm founded by operators to back consumer brands. The firm invests in scaled, category-defining brands at an inflection point in their growth across food and beverage, beauty and personal care, longevity and wellness, household goods, and pet care. Managing Partners Clayton Christopher and Brian Goldberg bring more than 40 years of combined operating and investing experience, having built and scaled brands including Sweet Leaf Tea, Deep Eddy Vodka, Waterloo Sparkling Water, and SkinnyPop. Astō pairs that experience with a deep industry network and a flexible approach to ownership, partnering with founders to navigate the challenges of scaling and build enduring consumer businesses. Learn more at https://astoconsumer.com.

Disclaimer: Other than Astō personnel, the individuals quoted are founders or executives of Astō portfolio companies. They are not clients or investors in any Astō fund and received no compensation for these statements. Astō is an investor in the companies these individuals lead and maintains an ongoing relationship with them, which may give them an incentive to describe their experience favorably. The companies referenced do not represent all Astō investments, and these experiences may not be representative of other portfolio companies.

This award is the opinion of the party conferring the award and not of Asto. The 2026 list of Founder-Friendly Investors, issued by Inc. on 10/27/2026, was based on the time period of October 2025 – October 2026. Asto submitted a nomination and paid a participation fee to be considered for this list. There can be no assurance that other providers or surveys would reach the same conclusion as the foregoing.

SOURCE Asto Consumer Partners