Oprah and Jay-Z Invest in Oatly as Plant Milk Goes Mainstream

Oprah Winfrey, Jay-Z and Natalie Portman are among the new investors in Swedish oat milk company Oatly, which has today announced a $200 million investment led by private equity giant Blackstone.

The round, announced on Tuesday, July 14, buys a stake of around 10% in the company. Bloomberg reports it values Oatly at roughly $2 billion. According to Oatly's announcement, the other investors are Oprah Winfrey, Jay-Z's entertainment company Roc Nation, Natalie Portman, former Starbucks chairman and CEO Howard Schultz, Orkila Capital and Rabo Corporate Investments, the investment arm of Dutch bank Rabobank.

Yes, a bank built on lending to farmers is now backing oat milk.

Oatly was founded in the 1990s on research from Lund University in Sweden and has become the best-known plant milk brand in the coffee world. The new money will go into expanding production and distribution across Europe, the US and Asia. CEO Toni Petersson said:

Leaders in asset management like Blackstone play an essential role in order to create real sustainable change. It is my belief that capital has to turn green and do so for the right reasons.

Ann Chung, managing director at Blackstone Growth, said: "Oatly has a creative and talented team, an incredible brand, and a strong set of values." Blackstone, she added, is excited to invest in what they have built.

Big money doesn't go where it expects to lose. When some of the most famous names in entertainment and one of the world's biggest investment firms put $200 million behind oat milk, that tells you which way the market is heading. Oatly's carton and Schultz's old company are already well acquainted: in January Starbucks put Oatly in 1,300 US stores.

It's good news for the planet too. The University of Oxford's Joseph Poore found that the impacts of the lowest-impact animal products typically exceed those of vegetable substitutes, which means even the 'greenest' dairy milk struggles to compete with a glass of oat.

This is the latest sign of the plant-based revolution Google predicted. Dairy is in serious decline as plant milks surge, a 90-year-old New York dairy now makes plant milks, and in February Joaquin Phoenix used his Oscars speech to speak up for dairy cows. Meanwhile plant-based meat sales surged 264% during lockdown.

If you're not vegan yet, switching your milk is the easiest place to start. Oprah would approve.