SKU, Austin Consumer Goods Accelerator, Kicks Off Sixth Class

[Updated 3/21/18 11:05 am. See below.] Austin—SKU, a retail and consumer packaged goods-focused accelerator, launched its latest class of startups on Tuesday.

SKU was founded as Incubation Station in 2012 by Austin entrepreneur Shari Wynne. SKU invests $10,000 in each company and takes an equity stake of 5 percent. [Updated with new figures on the investment in startups and equity stake taken by SKU.] The program’s mentors include: Clayton Christopher, founder of Deep Eddy Vodka; Robyn Metcalfe, director of Food+City; and Scott Jensen, co-founder and CEO of Rhythm Superfoods.

Here is the list of SKU’s latest startups:

—Hazienda Mezcal is making a line of “super premium” mezcals from southern Mexico.

—Meridian Hive makes mead (also known as honey wine) available bottled, canned, and on draft.

—Pure Spoon makes a nutrient packed, cold-compressed baby food.

—Guiltless Goodies features low-carb, keto- and paleo-friendly cookies and donuts that are free of gluten, grain, dairy, soy, yeast, and preservatives..

—Sway Water is marketing a line of still and sparkling waters made with fruit.

—Mosie Baby features its Mosie Insemination Syringe, which it says is made by women for women to use at home.

Author: Angela Shah

Angela Shah was formerly the editor of Xconomy Texas. She has written about startups along a wide entrepreneurial spectrum, from Silicon Valley transplants to Austin transforming a once-sleepy university town in the '90s tech boom to 20-something women defying cultural norms as they seek to build vital IT infrastructure in a war-torn Afghanistan. As a foreign correspondent based in Dubai, her work appeared in The New York Times, TIME, Newsweek/Daily Beast and Forbes Asia. Before moving overseas, Shah was a staff writer and columnist with The Dallas Morning News and the Austin American-Statesman. She has a Bachelor's of Journalism from the University of Texas at Austin, and she is a 2007 Knight-Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan. With the launch of Xconomy Texas, she's returned to her hometown of Houston.