ILS Gummies entered into a strategic growth partnership with a group of institutional capital providers, which is led by Edgehill Management, including ECP Growth, Patriot Capital, and Providence Investment Partners. The arrangement aims to provide capital to support ILS Gummies as it invests in expanding its business, particularly in terms of scaling its operations.
ILS Gummies operates out of a 130,000-square-foot facility located in McKinney, Texas, which handles manufacturing and packaging for companies in the nutraceutical space.
The company’s operations include traditional gummy formats, bilayer and center-filled gummies, as well as packaging capabilities to progress customers from early-stage incubation through to onboarding with national retailers.
Formed in 2022, ILS Gummies was created by Rosewood Private Investments and Catalina Capital as a purpose-built gummy manufacturing platform. With support from the capital providers, the company plans to invest in manufacturing capacity, its packaging operations, and operational infrastructure.
Jean Turlington, VP at Rosewood, told NutraIngredients that the next stage of ILS Gummies’ expansion will build on two major facility milestones completed in recent years: the first being the move to McKinney in 2023, and the second in 2025 to expand gummy manufacturing capacity at the same site.
The latter expansion saw production capacity increase to approximately 200 million gummies per month, compared to 60 million before the investment, according to a news report at the time.
“As ILS Gummies grows, the company plans to continue scaling proven, high-volume production while maintaining a strong focus on more complex, development-driven formats,” Turlington said. “The team has experience managing both priorities in parallel and views advanced formulation work as a key driver of long-term growth.”
When asked about the potential for an expanded focus into international markets, Turlington stated that the company believes that there remains “significant opportunity” in the domestic gummies market. She added that the company has a “strong pipeline” of new products for current customers, and further customers are being onboarded in 2026.
“As we continue to grow, we would certainly evaluate new formats or consider international expansion,” Turlington explained. “However, we believe there is plenty of white space in the market for us to grow within our current footprint and capability set.”
Early-stage incubation model
Part of ILS Gummies’ target customer base has been smaller companies looking to run comparatively smaller-scale production, with the company previously mentioning a 300,000 gummy minimum, equivalent to approximately 5,000 bottles.
This is part of the company’s early-stage incubation model, which supports customers as they scale.
When asked if this approach would change with the influx of capital for expansion, Turlington answered that the company’s strategy would not change.
“We will continue to support small brands as they develop and launch their products, and believe we can continue to be a strong partner for those brands,” she said. “With the capacity expansion, we will be in a position to continue growing with those brands and support their manufacturing needs as they scale.”
Rosewood’s work with ILS Gummies follows on from creating a similar venture with INW (International Nutrition and Wellness), which the private equity firm sold in 2021 to Cornell Capital LLC. INW is a provider of custom R&D, manufacturing, and marketing for global nutrition and wellness brands, which Rosewood had formed in 2014.
