Beverly Hills-private equity firm Butterfly Equity has agreed to buy a majority stake in San Diego-based Chosen Foods, a maker of avocado-based oil and staple foods.

Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Chosen Foods makes avocado-based kitchen staples, including cooking sprays, mayonnaises, dressings, simmer sauces, guacamole and salsa.

Butterfly, which has about $3 billion in assets under management, raised more than $521 million in its first fund and has assembled eight transactions in the food and agriculture space since its founding in 2016. 

In May, Butterfly announced it had purchased a majority position in New Hampshire-based Pete and Gerry’s Organics, one of the nation’s biggest producers of organic free-range and pasture-raised eggs.

Adam Waglay, Butterfly’s co-founder and co-chief executive, said other targets in the premium egg industry — mostly in the geographic belt that extends from the Midwest to New England, as well as the Southwest — are on the firm’s radar.

In August, Butterfly invested in MaryRuth Organics, a health and wellness brand operating in the premium vitamins, minerals and supplements industry.

More buying power is coming.

Butterfly, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings, is working to raise another $750 million for a third fund that is likely to hit $1 billion through oversubscriptions.

Besides eggs and avocado staples, Waglay also is building similar vertical businesses with carrots, ocean-raised striped bass and lemonade.

Waglay and Butterfly co-founder and Co-CEO Dustin Beck call the strategy their “seed to fork” approach to investing in food across agriculture, aquaculture, food and beverage products, food distribution and foodservice.

The longtime friends crossed paths briefly at Goldman Sachs & Co. in 2006 before Waglay moved to work on consumer-oriented merger and acquisition deals for New York-based investment banking firm KKR & Co. Inc.

Beck moved to Austin, Texas-based investment firm Vista Equity Partners before landing a senior job with Sawtelle-based Riot Games Inc., where he launched the video game publisher’s esports business.

In 2019, Butterfly bought Bolthouse Farms, a vertically integrated food and beverage company focused on carrots and other healthy offerings, from Campbell Soup Co. for $510 million.