Julia Collins’s life as a founder was demystified early on because entrepreneurship was already in her DNA.
She grew up in San Francisco in a family that talked about raising capital as well as the ups and downs of entrepreneurship, which she recognized as “a real gift.” Her parents owned a real estate development company, and before them, her grandparents ventured to San Francisco during the Great Migration to start their own dental practice. Another side of her family is also involved in entrepreneurship in the supply chain and produce industries and is behind C.H. James Produce, which was founded in 1883 in Charleston, WV, and became one of the longest-running Black-owned businesses in the U.S., she noted.
“That’s part of also where my interest in agriculture and my interest in food comes from,” she told AFROTECH™ in an interview.
Zume Pizza
Collins’s footprint includes several hospitality ventures, but the most notable would be the unicorn tech-enabled food company she founded in 2015, Zume Pizza. At its inception, Collins wanted to prove that healthier alternatives could be made available to the masses and address the 25% of greenhouse gas emissions that come from food systems, not to mention reduce the complexity of the process.
“We believed that we could use applications of technology across the entire food value chain to improve the way that food was grown, harvested, distributed, manufactured, retailed, and even consumed,” Collins noted.
Zume Pizza patented a cooking-en-route system that cooked food on the way to customers, delivering it at its freshest without added sugar or harmful chemicals, according to information on her LinkedIn. The company’s second innovation, and Collins’ first patent as an entrepreneur, was Pizza Pod, the first fully compostable pizza package, she shared with AFROTECH™. This improved delivery packaging and reduced plastic waste.
Next, the company tackled kitchen labor by introducing robots into its manufacturing line to make pizza more efficiently and safely. This also created career mobility, she added. One worker who flipped pizza at the company’s Silicon Valley, CA, location now works as a mechatronics engineer.
Zume Pizza also experimented with stair-climbing robots to deliver pizzas and drones, she noted. In retrospect, Collins said the speed at which products launched, teams were hired, and capital was raised was incredible, but maintaining that pace was also challenging.
In 2018, Zume Pizza raised a $375 million funding round led by SoftBank, per TechCrunch, bringing its valuation past $1 billion, Entrepreneur reports. Collins became the first Black woman to co-found a unicorn company, according to the outlet.
After the round closed and the funds were in the bank, Collins stepped away from the company as co-CEO and board member. Around this time she had become a first-time mother, and she wanted to focus on impact-driven work. She believed raising that much capital created a conflict of interest.
“When you raise that much capital, there’s a real ticking clock around returning that capital,” she noted.
Planet FWD
Collins was also ready to try her hand as a solo founder, which led to the launch of Planet FWD. This sustainability intelligence platform is “purpose-built for the consumer industry,” per its website.
“Planet FWD exists to help every company become its most sustainable self. We really are focused on, in particular, food, fashion, and beauty companies that account for about a quarter of all global greenhouse gas emissions. We work with those companies to measure all of their environmental impacts— water, air, carbon,” she explained.
Planet FWD is in its eighth year of operation, having grown consistently year over year. Collins has raised $25 million for the venture, she told AFROTECH™. She has been raising capital more judiciously and also noted she has the support of diverse backers.
“This time around I need to have some women, I need to have some people of color, not just on the cap table but in the boardroom with me. So I really intentionally, intentionally raised from diverse fund managers and diverse investors, and that has made a huge difference for me,” she said.
