Wayne Wu's Recent LinkedIn Posts

Thanks to Christian Toetzke, Moritz Fuerste, Andrew Sugerman, Douglas Gremmen, Marcus Funken and team HYROX for the invite to your event last Fri in Glendale, AZ! Congrats on the incredible global brand you’ve built! The best is still yet to come! Racing alongside the HYROX founders as well as ~20 fitness and wellness leaders from the ecosystem was an incredible way to complete my first HYROX race with a new friend in Salar Shahini! We certainly didn’t break any speed records, but more importantly we had a ton of fun and finished! I think this is the magic of HYROX! It’s accessible enough for someone like me who didn’t really train for it to have fun and finish to the pros who are some of the fittest in the world competing for a spot to qualify for the world championships in Stockholm! I can’t wait to do another race! *** Lastly, completely unrelated to HYROX, the Super Bowl is in SF this weekend! If you’re in town and want to hang, reach out! *** Other participants and HYROX team members: Pete Hull Bill Davis Ryan Murphy Danny Cortenraede Daniel Churchill M.e.S. John Ford Joe Chura Rufus Hack James Muscart David Magida Ian McCaig Jeffrey Katzenberg Tom Dowd Matthew Miller Edward Hertzman, Amy Smith David Yi Nuño Pérez-Pla de Alvear

So my buddies Josh Wand, Sean Kelly, and Kurt Seidensticker from the The Family Fund & Founder Community asked me to make a video about how I felt about their upcoming 2nd annual Founderland event in a few weeks… What came to mind was the theme of movie sequels - Die Hard, Karate Kid, Jurassic Park, Godfather, Speed, Terminator, but my inclination was that most sequels aren’t as good as the original. Maybe Terminator 2 and Godfather 2 are better than the originals? Don’t know if others have thoughts on this topic. Maybe Mark A. Samuel has a take? 😀 Anyways, I think Founderland will be more Terminator 2 or Godfather 2 than Speed 2 in that their sequel is going to be even better than the amazing original Founderland! Hope to see you there! Let’s go!

Great time today in our annual Costco Wholesale walk-through and lunch with our amazing undergrad summer intern crew in Kennedy Ly, Mark Pliushchanskii and Hossam Elsakka! Costco Wholesale has been an awesome longstanding partner to these current and former VMG Partners portfolio brands over the years!

First as business partners at Perfect Snacks through its sale to Mondelēz International… Then friends for life with Bill Keith, Leigh Keith and their families! Cheers to all of our memories to date and the ones to come together! Celebrating Bill’s birthday this past weekend in Vegas alongside our spouses Amy Wu, Daniel Ramirez and Amanda Keith! I learned yet another two Keith family stories that I had not heard before! Happy birthday Bill Keith!

Thanks to Drew F. from Iris Finance for having me on your show! As I mentioned on your podcast, I truly look forward to what you post on LinkedIn each day as I find your analysis of various transactions in the CPG space very intriguing and thought provoking! Keep up the great work! https://lnkd.in/gtSWnbDz

Yesterday I had the opportunity to spend the day at Target HQ with an impressive group of leaders, including CEO Michael Fiddelke. Michael has spoken publicly about the importance of newness across categories like food & beverage, beauty, wellness and baby to keep retail exciting for guests — the same categories that have long been a focus for us at VMG. Since the early days of the Target Made to Matter program 12 years ago, I’ve had the privilege of supporting Target in their newness efforts. Our mission at VMG Partners is simple — and a personal passion of mine: help grow the overall pie for better-for-you products by connecting innovative brands with great retailers such as Target and others across the industry — expanding access to better products for more consumers. And yes… a few selfies were required as usual! 🤳

In past years, my Pre-ExpoWest post was simple:   A photo of my VMG pants next to a suitcase. In many ways, this said it all...until now.   This year as you can see, apparently packing for Natural Products Expo West required a little more thought thanks to AI (almost looks like me). 😃   There’s a lot of great logo’ed merch at Expo so have to step up my game.   But the only annual tradition is deciding which pair of VMG pants makes the trip to Anaheim. These are tough decisions!   To prepare for a week with: Founders with the vision. Operators bringing it to life. Retailers who help make brands famous. Strategics who help make them ubiquitous. And our VMG signature founder / CEO dinners that help bring everyone together to make the magic happen.   See you at ExpoWest 2026!   It’s game time! Let’s go!🚀   #ExpoWest #NaturalProductsExpoWest #CPG #ConsumerBrands #GrowthEquity #Founders #Retail #Strategics

“Who’s got it better than us? Nobody!” — Jim Harbaugh That line came to mind wrapping up our third and final VMG Partners Founder / CEO Dinner at ExpoWest tonight! Three nights. Three incredible rooms filled with founders, CEOs, retailers and strategics across the consumer ecosystem. Huge thanks to Christopher Hanley, CFA and the Jefferies team for co-hosting tonight! One of my favorite things about this community is how we can compete on the field during the day and break bread together at night. Also shoutout to Jake Karls for getting everyone fired up for what might have been the best group photo of the three dinners! What a week. Who’s got it better than this community? Nobody!! #ExpoWest #CPG #ConsumerBrands #Founders #Retailers 🚀

Congrats to Michael Shoretz and Jen Haberman, co-founders of Fruit Riot!, on being named one of Bain & Company’s 2026 Insurgent Brands! 👏🔥 Proud to partner with the Fruit Riot team at VMG Partners and to be alongside our friends at Humble Growth as co-investors supporting this exciting brand in frozen fruit snacking. It’s been especially fun to watch retailers really lean into Fruit Riot — bringing the brand to life with creative displays and highlighting great collaborations like SpongeBob, Warheads, OLIPOP PBC, and more to come. Well deserved recognition for a team building something special in the frozen snack / better-for-you snacking category! Bravo team Fruit Riot! #InsurgentBrands #FrozenSnacks #ConsumerBrands #Founders #VMGPartners

What a great way to kick off ExpoWest week last night! Huge thank you to our co-host Brandon Galindo and the fantastic NielsenIQ team — and to the incredible group of founders, CEOs, retailers and strategics who joined us at our first of three VMG Partners founder / CEO dinners at ExpoWest 2026! Two more to come! I mentioned this at dinner, but ExpoWest has become more meaningful to me over the years. Earlier in my career I probably took it a bit for granted — just another busy week of meetings and brands. But over time I’ve realized what really makes this community special are the friendships that form and deepen year after year. Grateful for nights like this where old friends reconnect and new ones are made. If you’re at ExpoWest this week, hope we cross paths! Wishing everyone a fun, energizing and successful ExpoWest as the show kicks off this morning! Let’s go!! 🚀 #ExpoWest #NaturalProductsExpo #CPG #ConsumerBrands

As we head into the Year of the Horse, I’m reminded that building brands is rarely a straight line. Growth comes from navigating countless variables—market shifts, consumer trends, and unexpected challenges—and staying focused on what really moves the needle. That’s the spirit behind VMG Partners’ name—Velocity Made Good: real progress isn’t about constant speed, it’s about direction, adaptation, and forward motion over time. The Horse captures that energy perfectly—resilient, steady, and ready for the long run. Wishing founders, operators, and the entire consumer ecosystem a Happy Lunar New Year filled with perseverance, momentum, and a little extra tailwind along the way. 🧧🐎

Let’s dance!! Pretty special moment… my alma mater Santa Clara University is back in March Madness for the first time in 30 years — the first since the Steve Nash era in 1996! And of course… they draw Kentucky. David vs. Goliath. Exactly how it should be. I’ve always loved the underdog story — not just in sports, but in what we do every day at VMG Partners. Because building a challenger brand is the same game. You’re going up against bigger budgets, bigger teams, and decades of incumbency. The odds aren’t in your favor on paper. But… • You move faster • You see trends earlier • You’re more authentic • You’re hungrier That’s how disruptors win. That’s how new categories get created. That’s how the “little guys” beat the giants. Tomorrow, Santa Clara will step on the court as the underdog ready to pull off an upset over Kentucky! At VMG, we support founders who do the same every day. Who are you rooting for this tourney? Is your team the incumbent or challenger brand? Let’s go Broncos!!! #MarchMadness #Underdog #ChallengerBrands #VMGPartners #CPG #Entrepreneurship

Thanks to John Conlin, Melissa Millo and the Target team for inviting VMG Partners alongside our friends in Bob Daub and The Moscoe Group to co-host your latest grocery newness summit! Our passion is to support any retailers in their efforts to bring more newness to consumers and entrepreneurs who believe they have the next big idea! These summits help connect these two great initiatives together! Shout out to the 50+ founder driven brands who joined us from around the world yesterday! It’s been an honor and privilege to similarly support other retailers such as Walmart, Kroger and Sprouts Farmers Market over the years! I still remember our first one like it was yesterday with Jill Valiton McIntosh and Kroger a decade or so ago! Time flies by! Who’s up next?!?! However, it takes a village to get one of these summits off the ground so a special thanks to Michael Maher from Target, Kristine Leary from The Moscoe Group, Jose A. Bermudez, Irenne Ighodaro and especially Rebecca Florman from our VMG Partners team! #ecosystemlove

That’s my guy right here in Josh Wand! As I shared with him at lunch today, he’s one of the special humans who brings a unique energy that makes people feel inspired and seen. I mean that from a perspective both professionally of what’s he’s built at ForceBrands as well as what he and Sean Kelly are building at The Family Fund & Founder Community, but also what I’ve seen from him personally as a friend, father and husband. We’re super aligned in how we see the world in spreading love through building community and pride we share as fathers. I’m lucky to call him a friend! Much ❤️ Josh Wand! #tributepost

Well it’s true - in this case, the sequel of Founderland was even better than its incredible debut last year! Who’s with me here? A big THANK YOU to Josh Wand and Sean Kelly! You’re building a special community through the The Family Fund & Founder Community and Founderland! I shared a moment tonight with Sean Kelly reflecting on how we first met through Josh Wand years ago at a Project NOSH event in LA. This is what I love about this industry - meeting other values first truly good humans like Josh Wand and Sean Kelly who become great friends. Shout out to Shannon Kelly - I’m so glad that I was able to share an in person thank you to her as well. She makes quarterbacking this first class event look easy when it’s clearly a massive undertaking! Top 10 highlights that I’m thankful I was able to memorialize in pics: 1. Former business partners and now lifelong friends in Justin Gold, Madeline Haydon and Bill Keith - Madeline Haydon thought that the merry-go-round was under utilized and a memorable setting for our pic together! Justin Gold - Thanks for the kind shout out during your panel! Much ❤️ here! 2. Retailer partners and friends in Shawn Darmody, Michael Maher, Kim Coffin, Scott Romano, Buster Houston, Jesus Delgado-Jenkins, and Ryan Adams 3. Reconnecting with my former VMG Partners colleague Jarom Fawson who is running the leading cannibus brand 710 Labs, but also sharing a pic with him alongside Dolph Lundgren who played Ivan Drago from Rocky! 4. Reconnecting with college friend Mike Hurst - a pleasant surprise to see him at a CPG event! Loved reminiscing about the good ol’ days at Santa Clara University! 5. Meeting Ryan Lewendon’s fiancé Jessica Walsh - Ryan and I met in 2008 when we invested in KIND. I’m so happy for him in his next chapter of his personal life 6. Re the same theme, I was excited to catch up with Mark A. Samuel and also meet his fiancé Katharina. I think he’s onto some great things personally and professionally! Let’s go Mark! Ready for our double date to F45 Training back home in Marin with Amy Wu! 7. Amazed that Danny Stepper was still upright and full of his usual energy after just landing back in LA from London after crushing it at the inaugural The Beverage Forum Europe! He is an absolute dynamo! 8. Bill Weiland - a true legend and friend 9. Love what Daniel Scharff does to bring opportunities to early stage entrepreneurs - another truly good human building community 10. Hanging with Scott Sellers from Encore Consumer Capital - their fund started essentially the same time as VMG Partners as OG’s in consumer - wished he wore his signature green pants today though. Awesome to see all of their success! What a great day! Too many amazing convos with so many to even mention! Next year, I think Amy Wu is going to need to join too to see the magic of Founderland! Thanks for suggesting Sean Kelly! Next up - NACS show in Chicago next week! Please let me know if you’ll be there!

Guy Raz from How I Built This with Guy Raz’s recent podcast interview with Bill Keith and Leigh Keith is the best version of the Perfect Snacks story that I’ve heard to date! I’ve heard their life story so many times at this point and still learned something new about their unbelievable journey from this episode. For those who haven’t, you’ll hear about their childhood with 11 other siblings that included living in a school bus, in an abandoned pizza parlor, and a life story of persevence. Their journey is truly incredible and so blessed to have been a small part of it along the way - appreciated the VMG Partners shout out just after about an hour or so into the episode. Trust me that you’ll find this to be ~90 minutes well spent listening to this episode and story! Most of all, thank you Bill Keith, Leigh Keith, Charisse Keith and the rest of the Keith family for our continued friendship together! I’m a lucky guy! Zane Keith, Amyas Keith, Heather Keith Elizabeth Carter, Matt Landen Steve Calderone Rich Clark Jeff Perkel Allison Fowler

Thanks to SuperReturn for inviting VMG Partners to moderate your consumer and food & bev investing panel today in LA! Enjoyed sharing the stage with panelists in Taylor Kauer from Cordillera Capital, Genevieve G. Gilbreath from Springdale Ventures and Giuseppe Infusino from InvestBev!

Thankful to have met my friend Jeff Durham who was introduced to me a couple of years ago as someone who has a shared passion for community building! I love his mission of highlighting Utah as an incredible comsumer hub and enjoyed co-hosting our 2nd founder / CEO dinner in SLC together tonight alongside Brandon Ng from Houlihan Lokey! Much ❤️ to all who joined us!

Happy Friday! ExpoWest 2026… but make it Sears Family Portrait Edition. 📸 Anyone else take family photos there during their childhood? If you know, you know… From top to bottom: me, Jordan Siegal, Jennifer Hwang and Eliza Becker. No coordination. No stylist. Just accidental uniform energy. Next week this “very serious crew” will be in Anaheim for Expo West and it’ll look a lot less like a mall photo shoot and a lot more like: 🤗 Big hugs in the aisles 🛍️ Aggressively sampling everything (well…almost everything) 🍽️ Our signature VMG Founder & CEO dinners with incredible entrepreneurs, operators, retailers and strategics 💥 A few aisle dabs and selfies ExpoWest is basically the consumer ecosystem reunion. Nothing says reunion like a theme pic! Founders building real brands. Retailers shaping what wins on shelf. Strategics thinking about what’s next. Operators doing the hard stuff behind the scenes. We’re just lucky to be in the middle of it. Also… if this feels like another slightly enhanced or glitchy post… Just part of my initial AI journey. AI can do a lot. Still can’t make us stop dressing alike. Don’t worry - my annual pre-Expo VMG pants post is coming soon. It’s going to be my best one yet. If you’re heading to ExpoWest, come say hi. We’ll be the ones posing like it’s 1995. Let’s go! 🚀

Dinner #2 of 3 at ExpoWest last night! Another fantastic evening bringing together an amazing mix of founders, CEOs, retailers and strategics from across the consumer ecosystem. Huge thank you to Aaron Goldstein and the Raymond James team for co-hosting with us! One thing we try to do with these dinners is hand pick every guest in hopes of creating a really special mix of people in the room — the folks who create brands, build them, discover them and help scale them. When that combination comes together, a little magic tends to happen! One more dinner tonight… ExpoWest week keeps rolling! Love being part of this incredible consumer / CPG community. Hope to see many of you around the show! #ExpoWest #NaturalProductsExpoWest #CPG #ConsumerBrands #Founders #Retailers

At the new Walmart Home Office yesterday —and came away genuinely inspired. The energy, intentionality, and sheer beauty of the new campus is something you feel the moment you step on it. It reflects a company leaning into the future while staying grounded in its mission to serve millions of Americans every day. And more broadly—Bentonville keeps getting more impressive every time I visit. The momentum, talent influx, and community being built there are real. It’s starting to feel like the next Austin. A real highlight was catching up with Julie Barber —a friend of nearly a decade—on her recent appointment as Chief Merchant. Incredible leader, and even better person. Grateful to have been invited to spend time with Melody Richard’s grocery team, and with Ryland Allen and his Wellness & Nutrition team. Also great to connect with Jennifer Baumhoer and Kathy Reynolds specifically regarding frozen foods. These conversations always reinforce something I care deeply about: I see my role—and VMG’s role—as helping bridge the gap between the most innovative health & wellness founders and the retailers who can bring those products to scale. Not for any one retailer. But for the ecosystem. Because ultimately, this isn’t about shelf space—it’s about access. Walmart plays a uniquely important role here. Roughly 90% of Americans live within 10 miles of a Walmart store, which makes it one of the most powerful platforms in the country for increasing access to affordable, better-for-you products. Our journey with Walmart goes back about a decade, when Charles Redfield invited VMG and PLTFRM to help host their inaugural innovation summit focused on health & wellness. That spirit of partnership and openness to new brands continues to stand out today. At VMG Partners, we’re proud to work across the retailer ecosystem—helping great brands grow, helping retailers win, and most importantly, helping consumers access better choices. That mission feels more important than ever. Thanks again to the Walmart team for the time, the dialogue, and the continued partnership. Let’s go! 🚀 #Walmart #Bentonville #HealthAndWellness #CPG #Retail #ConsumerBrands #Innovation #BetterForYou #Nutrition #Grocery #Wellness #VMGPartners

Excited to share that my colleague Alisa Carmichael will be speaking on an upcoming The Wall Street Journal webinar this Thursday! Alisa was recognized as a rising star on The Journal’s annual Women to Watch list in 2018 – a recognition that spotlights standout women in the private equity industry and reflects the impact she’s had at VMG. The webinar is part of the 10th anniversary of the Women to Watch list and should be a great conversation on building a career in private equity and the trends shaping dealmaking today. If you’re interested in where the market is heading, and hearing from someone helping shape it firsthand, I’d encourage you to tune in Thursday (3/26) at 10am PT! Let's go Alisa Carmichael! 🎉 You can register for free here: https://lnkd.in/gMk3yYsj

We’ve landed at ExpoWest with my VMG Partners colleagues Eliza Becker, Jennifer Hwang and Jordan Siegal IRL! Ready for the show floor to open this morning! Stop us to say hello! Let’s go! 🚀 #ExpoWest #NaturalProductsExpoWest #ConsumerBrands #Founders #CPG #VMGPartners #NotAI #IRL #Retailers

We are four. At least… that was the score. Eliza Becker. Jennifer Hwang. Jordan Siegal. Me. Four teammates heading to ExpoWest with velocity made good. High fives in the hall, big ideas getting tall. Hugs that say, “You built it strong — now let’s build it more.” Founder / CEO dinners at night, retailers and strategics leaning in tight. Operators scaling. Founders prevailing. Stories of grit, of bets that commit. Samples stacked high — bars, chips, beverages we “have to try.” All in the name of research, of course. No restraint. Full growth force. And yes — the VMG pants, back for their Anaheim dance. So I thought… why not soar? Let’s build a Sora video of the four. Take off from our building, logo bright, cross dimensions, land just right. Simple idea. Clean. Precise. AI said… “Let’s roll the dice.” Sometimes three. Sometimes five. Sometimes I barely survived. Once I vanished mid-flight. Once my physique… not quite right. We launched from buildings that weren’t ours. We gained surprise teammates with bonus powers. Across dimensions we tried to explore — just trying to keep it to four. Prompt. Remix. Refine once more. Kind of like building companies ready to scale even more. Iteration. Tension. Long-term intention. Progress rarely travels in a straight line — in AI, in business, in building something built to last over time. So next week we fly the old-school way through the sky. Four humans. One floor. Big belief. Even bigger roar. If you’re heading to ExpoWest too, we’d love to connect with you. High fives. Hugs. Founder dinners. Samples galore. Four teammates. One mission. Turn up the volume. Let’s go! 🚀

Thanks to our friends from Houlihan Lokey in Brandon Ng and Noah Bremen, Josh Taekman + Marty Laitre from PLTFRM for co-hosting our VMG Partners founder and CEO dinner at the NACS show in Chicago! Much ❤️ to all who joined us tonight!