Montreal, QC
Pre-money Valuation C$4,263,250
Please note that all figures are in Canadian Dollars.
“I know from experience how loyal people are to Wafu once they’ve tried it. I was a long-time user, like many friends, before investing. Gil and Arabella are true entrepreneurs, passionate believers in their product, working their butts off to build Wafu on a shoestring budget. They’re great to work with – they listen, learn and keep improving. And it’s working. We’re poised for tremendous growth with expanded distribution coming on stream in the next year. Their vision is clear: Wafu is the only authentic, Japanese-style brand and that’s what will make them successful “
WAFU Inc. is a small fast growing Canadian company. Our mission is to bring healthy, great-tasting, Japanese-style foods to the kitchens of the west. Our WAFU® dressings and mayos are currently the best-selling line of Asian dressings and mayos in Canada.
As a result of that success, we are in the process of expanding the distribution of WAFU® Japanese-style dressings and mayos to the rest of Canada and the United States and are developing additional WAFU® product lines for introduction to the North American specialty and general grocery markets.
Gil Michel-Garcia, President and CEO
Gil has more than fifteen years of global corporate legal and business experience, which he acquired as a corporate securities lawyer at leading international law firms in Montreal, New York and London. Gil’s corporate legal and business background includes extensive experience with cross-border private debt and equity offerings by foreign companies in the United States, as well as venture capital and private equity transactions. During the last 15 years, Gil has helped more than 70 Canadian and non-US companies to raise in excess of $10 billion in private placements from investors in the United States. As CEO of WAFU, Gil …
Arabella brings sixteen years of global brand strategy, marketing, communications, activation and sales expertise in CPGs, which she acquired as an advertising executive at Ogilvy Worldwide (The Ogilvy Group/WPP) in Toronto, New York and London. She has helped launch, shape and grow local and global brands for clients such as Unilever in Personal Care, and Kraft Foods in the Coffee, Cereal and Beverages categories. Arabella spearheaded the re-branding of WAFU®. Her efforts resulted in WAFU®’s nomination as a finalist for the Canada Brand Award in 2008, an award which is granted annually by the Agri-Food Export Group Québec-Canada. Arabella holds …
Mari Toyoda, VP Operations
Mari brings more than twenty-five years of experience as a Japanese chef. Born in Japan to Japanese restaurateurs, Mari is one of the very few officially licensed Japanese chefs (by the City of Tokyo) in Canada. Since immigrating to Canada in the 1980s, Mari has had her own Japanese restaurant in Montreal (Nishiyama) and also participated in televised cooking shows on authentic Japanese cuisine. Mari has taught Japanese cooking classes including sushi, traditional, home-style, vegetarian and Zen food and has trained many of the Japanese chefs in the province of Quebec. Mari holds a B.A. in Economics from Kanto Gakuin …