When Once Upon a Farm sold its first public shares in February 2026, most headlines led with Jennifer Garner. The company’s own filing tells a quieter story about the woman who started it. Cassandra Curtis wrote the original recipes, co-founded the business in 2015, and at the IPO held about 1.4% of it.
That number comes from the “Principal and Selling Stockholders” table in the S-1/A Once Upon a Farm filed with the SEC, and it is worth reading closely, because it’s the clearest public record of what a founder keeps after a decade of venture rounds.
| At a glance | |
|---|---|
| Company | Once Upon a Farm, PBC (Berkeley, California) |
| Founded | 2015, by Cassandra Curtis and Ari Raz |
| Joined as co-founders | John Foraker and Jennifer Garner, September 2017 |
| Curtis’s role | Co-founder, chief innovation officer and director |
| IPO | $18 a share, NYSE: OFRM, February 6, 2026 |
| Net sales | $225.9 million, 12 months to September 30, 2025 |
| Curtis’s stake after the IPO | About 1.4% of the common stock |
From her kitchen to 25,000 stores
The filing describes the start plainly: “In 2015, Cassandra Curtis and Ari Raz started Once Upon a Farm,” and Curtis “created the original recipes in her kitchen to feed her own children.” Baby food wasn’t new to her. Her biography in the filing says her first venture in the category was Mother’s Garden, a high-pressure-processing baby food company she founded and ran as CEO and president. Before that she led other startups in San Diego, mostly in product development and operations. She is a certified integrative nutrition coach and holds a BS in psychology and an MS in marriage and family therapy from Alliant International University.
In September 2017, John Foraker, who had been CEO of Annie’s starting in 2003 and later ran the Annie’s unit at General Mills, joined with Jennifer Garner as co-founders. Foraker became chief executive. Curtis has served as chief innovation officer and on the board since 2017.
The business that grew out of those recipes now sells cold-pressed pouches, frozen meals, refrigerated oat bars and dry baby snacks in more than 25,000 stores across the US, per the S-1/A, which describes it as “the #1 growth brand in the category.”
Growth was fast but not yet profitable. Net sales rose from $66.3 million in 2022 to $225.9 million in the 12 months to September 30, 2025, which the filing calls a 56.2% compound annual growth rate. In the first nine months of 2025, net sales were $176.7 million and the net loss was $39.8 million, against a $23.8 million loss for all of 2024.
The IPO, by the numbers
Once Upon a Farm priced at $18 a share and began trading on the NYSE on February 6, 2026, per the pricing announcement as reported by Investing.com. It sold 10,997,209 shares: 7,631,537 new shares from the company and 3,365,672 from existing holders. At $18, that is about $197.9 million in total, about $137.4 million of it going to the company.
The S-1/A says 40,231,814 shares would be outstanding after the offering. Multiplying by the $18 price gives a market value of about $724 million at the IPO price. That’s our arithmetic from the filing, and it leaves out the underwriters’ option on another 1,649,581 shares.
Who owns Once Upon a Farm
Here is the ownership table, reduced to the people and firms most readers ask about.
Three details in the footnotes change how to read it:
- Curtis’s line is part options. Her 563,298 shares are 419,535 shares of common stock plus 143,763 shares under options she could exercise within 60 days of January 5, 2026.
- Garner’s stake went up in the IPO. Her line rises from 2,702,671 shares before the offering to 3,057,279 after it, because 354,608 more option shares were set to vest just before the offering.
- Ari Raz sold. The other original founder was a selling stockholder, offering 242,931 of his 809,804 shares and keeping 566,873, or 1.4%.
Curtis sold nothing in the offering. At the $18 IPO price, the shares and options in her line would come to roughly $10.1 million before any option exercise cost. That’s a value for one holding on one day, not a measure of her wealth, and no reliable figure for her net worth has been published.
What a 1.4% founder stake tells you
None of this is unusual for a consumer brand that raised venture money for a decade, and the filing doesn’t say how Curtis’s stake changed along the way. It shows where things ended up. The two largest blocks belong to investors: CAVU at 27.5% and S2G at 14.0%. The two co-founders who arrived in 2017 with operating experience and a famous name hold larger stakes than either original founder.
It’s a useful counterpoint to other founder stories in our archive. Yael Aflalo’s family trust was expected to keep about 20% of Reformation when it listed in July 2026, years after she stopped running it. Elizabeth Stein built Purely Elizabeth from a $5,000 start into an estimated $850 million sale to Ferrero, another founder who began with her own recipes in the natural food aisle. Curtis’s route was different again: she stayed inside the company in a product role while professional operators and investors scaled it.
The S-1/A gives her one more distinction. She is still there. Eleven years after she started cooking for her own children, she is a director and the executive in charge of what the company makes next.
Figures are from Once Upon a Farm’s S-1/A filed in January 2026 and the February 6, 2026 pricing announcement. Last checked October 28, 2026.
Frequently asked questions
Who founded Once Upon a Farm?
Cassandra Curtis and Ari Raz started Once Upon a Farm in 2015, according to the company's S-1/A filing. John Foraker, the former CEO of Annie's, and actor Jennifer Garner joined them as co-founders in September 2017. Foraker is the chief executive and Curtis is chief innovation officer.
Does Jennifer Garner own Once Upon a Farm?
She owns part of it. The S-1/A's ownership table shows Jennifer Garner with about 7.4% of the common stock after the IPO, counting options she could exercise within 60 days. She is a co-founder and director, and her title in the filing is Farmer Jen.
Who is the largest shareholder of Once Upon a Farm?
Venture investor CAVU, with 27.5% of the common stock after the offering, per the S-1/A. S2G was second at 14.0% and Cambridge third at 9.3%.
How much of Once Upon a Farm does Cassandra Curtis own?
About 1.4% after the IPO, per the S-1/A. That line counts 419,535 shares plus 143,763 shares under options exercisable within 60 days of January 5, 2026. No reliable figure for her personal net worth has been published.
When did Once Upon a Farm go public?
It priced its IPO at $18 a share and began trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker OFRM on February 6, 2026, per the pricing announcement reported by Investing.com.