Dan Oliver Took $25M for Dan-O's Seasoning and Kept the Keys

Most founders who take outside money for a brand they built at flea markets are asked, at some point, whether they are still the right person to run it. Dan Oliver’s answer arrived with the money. When The Newcastle Network announced a $25 million strategic investment in Dan-O’s Seasoning on October 21, 2026, the release said Oliver and CEO Phillip Crosby would both continue to lead the business. The stake, the valuation and the deal structure were not disclosed.

At a glance

$8,000 and a backpack

The company’s own release says Oliver founded Dan-O’s in 2015. Other sources date the business from 2017, and the sources do not reconcile the two years. The company’s 2023 Inc. 5000 Regionals announcement says it was founded in 2017, and in a 2022 PYMNTS profile Oliver dated his first flea market to June 1, 2017.

What every account shares is the scale of the start. Oliver, a Louisville native and former bartender, told PYMNTS he began with “$8,000 and a backpack.” In the Inc. release he put it this way: “When I started the company with $8,000, I could only dream of this company growth.” The October 2026 announcement says the Original blend first sold at a farmers market after friends urged him to share it, and that fans then began combining blends and inventing recipes, which became the community the brand now cites.

The pandemic pivot

Flea markets, fairs and festivals were the business until March 2020, when in-person events stopped. According to PYMNTS, Oliver moved to social media and posted several TikTok videos a day, and he credits that shift with the growth that followed. Retailers noticed. By 2022 PYMNTS described Walmart, Kroger and dozens of other national chains stocking the line, a leap from flea markets to shelves in under five years, with Oliver’s TikTok following near 3 million.

The numbers that followed are the company’s own. In March 2023 it announced a rank of No. 8 on the Inc. 5000 Regionals: Southeast list, with two-year revenue growth of 3,072 percent against a list average of 673 percent, and said its products were in over 13,000 retailers with 3.4 million TikTok followers. The release gave percentages but no dollar revenue. Three years later the retailer count has risen to more than 22,000.

Building a base in Louisville

Growth showed up in Louisville too. In December 2024, Area Development reported a $4.7 million expansion adding an office and test kitchen, with a commitment to 30 full-time Kentucky jobs over 10 years. In the state announcement, Oliver offered this advice to other founders: “Be passionate about what you do, never give up and be ready to give it everything you’ve got.”

By 2026 the line had widened beyond bottles. Just Food reported that earlier in the year Dan-O’s moved into meal starters and dip mixes, including Dan-O’s Chili and Dan-O’s Tac-O packets, and sells through Walmart, Kroger, Publix, Amazon and its own site.

What the $25 million is for

The release says the money will go to wider retail and online distribution, more flavors and new product formats. Newcastle’s portfolio also includes Kizik (footwear), Super7 (collectibles) and Pet Life Unlimited (pet products); Dan-O’s is its first food brand. Managing partner Chris Casgar said, per Just Food, “Dan has built far more than a seasoning company,” and in the Pulse 2.0 report of the announcement, “The Dan-O’s investment is just the beginning.”

Oliver’s own line in the release reads: “They’ve built this into something way bigger than me.” It is the sentence of a founder who has decided the brand needs more than one personality behind it, and who has a CEO in place to say so.

What the company has not said matters too. Just Food noted that Dan-O’s did not disclose the stake, the structure, annual net sales, profit or forecasts. We do not know whether Oliver sold shares or the company issued them, and a reader should treat any claim about his ownership as unconfirmed.

What founders can take from it

• Use the channel you can afford, then change it when it breaks. Flea markets built the product; TikTok replaced them when events stopped.
• Put an operator beside the face of the brand. A named CEO alongside the founder is what lets a creator-led company absorb institutional money.
• Show traction before you take the cheque. Thousands of retail doors and a multi-million-follower audience preceded this announcement.
• Say what you will not say. Terms were kept private, which leaves the story to the product.

Related founders

• Diana Levy and Undercover Snacks: Mondelēz’s Majority Stake: another food founder who stayed on after a big investor arrived.
• Justin Gill and Bachan’s: Marzetti’s $400 Million Deal: a sauce brand founder sale with a disclosed price.
• Founder Exits of 2026: 23 Deals and What Founders Kept: the year’s founder ownership deals in one table.

Sourcing: the deal date, amount, investor, leadership, retail and community figures come from the October 21, 2026 announcement, opened directly via its PR Newswire syndication, and are corroborated by Just Food and Pulse 2.0. The 2023 growth figures are from the company’s Inc. 5000 release (PR Newswire); the founding story and quotes from PYMNTS (October 2022); the 2024 expansion from Area Development. Stake, valuation, revenue and profit have not been published. No portrait is used; the image is a typographic card.