FoodTech Weekly

Justin Hughes spent over a decade as a fighter pilot in the Royal Air Force (RAF). Today, he's fighting another battle -- climate change. Production and field application of synthetic fertilizer causes about 2% of total greenhouse gas emissions. NetZeroNitrogen, which Justin leads as CEO, uses a non-GM bacteria that does nitrogen fixation, meaning the company will hopefully be able to replace up to 50% of synthetic fertilizer use -- a huge win for the climate. Read the full conversation here: https://lnkd.in/dmCcPN2V

Some highlights from FoodTech Weekly #227 (https://lnkd.in/dumVsz4j) which was sent this morning: 🇨🇭 Yeastup has raised CHF 8.9M (appr. $9.9M) in Series A funding from investors such as Beyond Impact VC, Gentian Investments AG, Newtree Impact, and Angel House. The company extracts functional ingredients (such as an egg protein replacement) from spent brewer’s yeast 🇩🇰 AgTech startup AgriRobot, which develops safety software for ag robots and autonomous tractors, has closed a funding round, bringing its total funding to €2.5M+ (appr. $2.6M). The latest round was led by Nominal Ventures and joined by Tall Grass Ventures. In somewhat related news, Cambridge-based startup AutoPickr has been awarded a £475K (appr. $600K) grant by Innovate UK and Defra, to develop Vinny the wineyard robot 🇬🇧 Cerve has bagged £3.5M (appr. $4.4M) in a funding round led by SuperSeed and joined by Zenith, Ponderosa Ventures and The First Thirty. The startup, which has 2,000 customers in Europe, provides a platform which digitizes the food supply chain and helps drive down waste 🇺🇸 Plantible Foods, which recently announced a $30M Series B round led by Siddhi Capital and Piva Capital, has now taken in additional investment (sum undisclosed) from ICL Group. Plantible grows water lemna (a.k.a. duckweed) and extracts RuBisCo protein from it 🇸🇪 Proteinish has secured SEK 3.5M (appr. $320K) in preseed funding from e.g. Foodbridge/Novax. The company is planning to build Sweden’s first large-scale facility for textured plant proteins and plant-based meat alternatives, using Swedish raw materials such as grains and legumes. Production will begin by the end of 2026 🍯 German researchers have developed a honey-like, sugar-free and calorie-free protein 10K times sweeter than sugar 📉 Data from the Global Alliance for the Future of Food shows that the percentage of investment allocated to the agrifood sector decreased to 2.5% between 2017 and 2022, totaling $16.3B 🫰 Swedish FoodTech investment firm Nicoya has secured SEK 90M (appr. $8.2M) in new capital from e.g. IKEA heir Mathias Kamprad, and professional footballer Alexander Isak 🛑 AquaBounty Canada, Inc. is shutting down. The company spent decades developing gene-edited salmon grown in indoor facilities; their ‘AquAdvantage salmon’ (all infertile females) grew much faster and needed less feed than conventional salmon, but the company faced both regulatory and customer acceptance headwinds 👨🏻💻 New jobs at Volta Greentech (Sweden), Klim (Germany) and GoNina (Switzerland) 💬 Conversation with Justin Hughes of NetZeroNitrogen 🎙️ Investment Climate podcast highlights (hosted by Alex Shandrovsky) with Olaf van der Veen of Orbisk | Zero Food Waste ...and much more! Subscribe now at: https://lnkd.in/d8mUXXH5 #foodtechweekly #FoodTech #agtech #startups #funding #tech

Since moving the newsletter to beehiiv, I've put out 169 newsletters totalling 277,000 words 🤯 Thanks for following along! Subscribe to FoodTech Weekly here: https://lnkd.in/d8mUXXH5 Start your own free newsletter: https://lnkd.in/dSzJK2PN

Some highlights from FoodTech Weekly #226 (https://lnkd.in/drHJ42M7) which was sent this morning: 🇩🇪 Planet A Foods, which develops cocoa-free chocolate, has closed a $30M Series B round, co-led by BURDA and ZINTINUS 🇮🇱 In related news, cell-cultured cocoa startup Celleste Bio raised $4.5M in a round led by Supply Change Capital and joined by Mondelēz International’s SnackFutures Ventures, Consensus Business Group, The Trendlines Group, Barrel Ventures and Regba Agriculture. Celleste Bio says it can create 1 ton of cocoa butter from a single cocoa pod 🇺🇸 one.bio, a spinoff from University of California, Davis, has drummed up a $27M Series A round, led by AlphaEdison and joined by e.g. Leaps by Bayer, DSM, Acre Venture Partners, and Mitsui E12. The company has developed a proprietary technology that can turn ag waste into odorless, colorless, and tasteless fibers 🇮🇱 Gavan Technologies has pulled in $8M in Series A funding. The company produces a plant-based fat that can act as e.g. a one-to-one replacement for butter in bakery products and dairy alternatives. The funding round was led by MoreVC, and joined by Lever VC, EIT Food, and DarkBoot Group 🇮🇹 Kinsect , which develops tech to breed insects for use as sustainable proteins, has bagged €1M (appr. $1.06M) in funding, led by Farming Future and joined by e.g. Terra Next, Agrox, and Forest Valley 🇳🇱 Orbisk | Zero Food Waste, which builds AI-powered software solutions that helps professional kitchens manage their food waste, has taken in €8M (appr. $8.4M) in Series A funding, led by Regeneration.VC and PeakBridge and joined by e.g. Kost Capital, DOEN Participaties B.V., Brabant and EIT Food. 🇨🇦 Cascadia Seaweed, which cultivates kelp as biostimulants and livestock feed, has raked in a CAD $4M (appr. $2.8M) in Series A from investors such as WWF Impact 🇵🇹 Biotech startup CarboCode which produces compounds present in breast milk but absent from infant formula milk has banked €15M (appr. $16M) in Series C led by Iberis Capital 🇺🇸 Rosy Soil has scooped up $3.6M in Seed funding from Climate Capital, Draper Associates, and Boost VC. The company works on creating a biochar-based soil additive from captured carbon emissions to improve soil health and plant growth 🇨🇱 Luyuf Biotechnologies, which develops tech to industrialize cultivated meat, has secured $1.25M in non-dilutive grants from the Chilean Economic Development Agency and The Good Food Institute 🇪🇸 HEMAV has hauled in €8M (appr. $8.4M) led by Future Food Fund, PureTerra Ventures, and Inclimo. The startup offers a platform that supports agriculturalists in making data-driven decisions to optimize yields 🎙️ Investment Climate podcast highlights (hosted by Alex Shandrovsky) with Julien Lesage of HUBCYCLE ...and much more! Subscribe now at: https://lnkd.in/d8mUXXH5 #foodtechweekly #FoodTech #agtech #startups #funding #tech

Some highlights from FoodTech Weekly #225 (https://lnkd.in/dPAymxST) which was sent this morning: 🇳🇱 Cradle Bio has secured $73M in Series B funding led by IVP. The company helps scientists speed up protein development for e.g. food and ag, which cuts costs 🇫🇷 Kapsera has closed a €4.2M (appr. $4.4M) Series A for microbial-based biofertilizers and biopesticides. New and existing investors included e.g. The Yield Lab, Banque des Territoires, Demeter, Région Nouvelle-Aquitaine and Bpifrance   🇨🇭 KITRO has raised a Series A round (sum undisclosed) from ZINTINUS and Pymwymic. The startup offers an automated food waste data collection and analysis solution for foodservice / hospitality actors, and is already present in 20+ countries. The solution tracks and records all discarded items in professional kitchens, helping chefs and managers point food waste issues and take action, which saves costs and cuts food waste 🇳🇴 Biotech firm Vestland Pharma AS has reeled in NOK 12M (appr. $1.1M) from Sarsia and Coast Seafood AS. The startup has developed a natural compound which combats salmon lice, a massive challenge that costs the seafood industry around NOK 18B (appr. $1.6B) annually. Vestland has also received a NOK 10.6M (appr. $1M) grant from Innovation Norway’s Environmental Technology Scheme 🇩🇰 endless food co has bagged a €1M (appr. $1.05M) pre-seed round led by Nordic Foodtech VC and backed by Export and Investment Fund of Denmark and Rockstart, and announced a ‘major commercial partnership’ with 7-Eleven Denmark to launch products with Endless’ chocolate alternative THIC, made from upcycled brewer’s spent grain 📉 The economics of vertical farming just don’t work, Hannah Ritchie argues, but notes that cheaper LED lights and electricity systems may change the prospects — although that could take decades 🐟 Singapore-based startup BioDefense has developed a ‘tasteless, odorless, and invisible’ coating that can boost shelf life of fish by 2-3x 💹 FoodTech funding in Japan has jumped 58% year-over-year to $280M across 93 deals, AgFunder reports. The real figure is higher since another 53 investments occurred with an unknown funding amount  💧NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration satellites reveal an ‘abrupt drop’ in global freshwater levels starting in May 2014 (agriculture uses around 70% of all freshwater globally) 🎙️ Investment Climate podcast highlights (hosted by Alex Shandrovsky) with Laurel Orley of Daily Crunch 🤩 New jobs at planetary (🇨🇭) ...and much more! Subscribe now at: https://lnkd.in/d8mUXXH5 #foodtechweekly #FoodTech #agtech #startups #funding #tech

Processors and factories for conventional meat blend unhealthy animal fat into various meat products to improve the taste, texture, and juiciness — but conventional animal fat is costly and unhealthy, and supply is limited. The Fat Company has developed plant-sourced fat particles that replace animal fat — without cholesterol and trans fat, but with the same taste and texture. I saw down with the company co-founders, Shahar Margalit and Asaf Cohen Jonathan, to learn more:

Some highlights from FoodTech Weekly #224 (https://lnkd.in/dWMWiUrS) which was sent this morning: 🇬🇧 Three-Sixty Aquaculture Limited, which uses RAS (a recirculating aquaculture system) to produce prawns in land-based farming, has scored £3.5M (appr. $4.4M) in Series A funding led by PrimeStar Industries 🇳🇱 TRACT, a SaaS platform which specializes in improving sustainability in ag supply chains, has bagged $11.2M in new funding. The round was backed by existing investors ADM, Cargill, Louis Dreyfus Company, and Olam, as well as new backers The Working Capital Fund and Rabo Investments 🇺🇸 EarthOptics, which professionalizes in soil digitization and predictive agronomy, has raised a $24M funding round led by Conti Ventures and The Production Board. The company uses soil-sensing, genomics, and data science to provide farmers and ranchers actionable insights into how the soil is doing. In related news, Spatialise (🇳🇱 )has nabbed €350K for its AI-driven soil health monitoring platform 🇺🇸 OceanWell has closed $11M in Series A funding from e.g. Kubota Corporation. The company has developed a modular reverse-osmosis desalination plant that can be planted more than 1000 ft (300 m) underwater, leveraging the ocean’s gravitational pressure to produce up to 1M gallons (about 4M liters) of on-demand freshwater, daily. The water can then be used e.g. in agriculture. Frequent droughts have exacerbated freshwater shortages in California 🇺🇸 Vegan seafood startup Finneato Fysh Foods has reeled in $150K from a Shark Tank deal with Daniel Lubetzky 😮 In 2020, XPRIZE launched the ‘Feed the Next Billion’ competition (with $10M in prize money) to find alternatives to chicken breasts and fish fillets capable of competing with conventional products. Now, XPRIZE has announced that ‘no grand prize winner was declared’ 🥛 Molecular farming startup Alpine Bio has harvested its first large-scale crop of soybeans that contain casein proteins. And Israeli precision fermentation dairy company Imagindairy has received regulatory clearance in Israel, meaning it can now sell its cow-free whey protein to food manufacturers 💵 Hort Innovation and Artesian (Alternative Investments) are teaming up to launch a new $60M VC fund backing early-stage startups tackling challenges for fruit, vegetable, and nut farmers 🇰🇷 Biotech company Infinite Roots® has introduced its mycelium-based meat alternative products to supermarkets for the first time — in South Korea. 💡Conversation with Shahar Margalit and Asaf Cohen Jonathan of The Fat Company 🎙️ Investment Climate podcast highlights (hosted by Alex Shandrovsky) with Dr. Fabian Riedel of Oceanloop 🤩 New jobs at Ki Tua Fund (U.S.), Beans (France), and Win-Win (U.K.) ...and much more! Subscribe now at: https://lnkd.in/d8mUXXH5 #foodtechweekly #FoodTech #agtech #startups #funding #tech

"Fungicides are neurotoxicologic and carcinogenic. They’re the most problematic substances on Earth, and are used in insane quantities, far more than recommended. There are thousands of deaths annually through direct exposure. At the same time, fungicides are effective, they are off-patent so they are cheap, and are easy to use. We needed to do something which was just as easy to use. Our solution, GotaBlanca, uses one of the oldest bacterial fungicides — antimicrobial silver. There are no detrimental effects." This says Lawrence Pratt, Founder and CEO of ClearLeaf. Read the full conversation here: https://lnkd.in/gUG2W6Fe

Some highlights from FoodTech Weekly #223 (https://lnkd.in/dW3HW5Xv) which was sent this morning: 🇺🇸 Plantible has raked in a $30M Series B round co-led by Siddhi Capital and Piva Capital, and backed by Betagro Ventures, Cultivate Next / Chipotle, Nourish Ventures, and Astanor. The company produces RuBisCo protein from the fast-growing aquatic plant lemna, a.k.a. duckweed 🇫🇷 Agribiotech scaleup ELICIT PLANT, which produces phytosterols (a plant-derived sterol similar to animal cholesterol) used as a biostimulant to enhance plant health, has raised €45M (appr. $47M) in Series B funding led by Carbyne Equity Partners and joined by e.g. European Circular Bioeconomy Fund (ECBF), Sofinnova Partners, and Ecotechnologies 2 Fund. 🇧🇪 BiocSol which specializes in sustainable microbial-based crop protection has bagged €5.2M (appr. $5.5M) in a Seed round led by Agri Investment Fund and Vives Inter-University Fund, and joined by e.g. invest.bw and IMBC Spinnova Sa 🇫🇷 Innovafeed has been awarded a $11.8M USDA grant to develop its insect-based fertilizer (also known as frass) in the U.S. The firm is planning a large-scale black soldier fly larvae rearing and processing facility in Illinois 🇩🇪 Foodji, which supplies SMEs with healthy and fresh food through flexible food vending machines, has secured €25M (appr. $26M) in financing from P Capital Partners. The company will now expand in Germany and throughout Europe 🇬🇷 Ocean 14 Capital  has invested in aquaManager, a technology provider for software, IoT, and AI in aquaculture 🇨🇭 Seaweed-based packaging startup B'ZEOS has closed a €5M+ (appr. $5.2M) Seed round and strategic partnerships with Faber and ICIG Ventures. B’ZEOS solutions are 100% bio-based, home-compostable, and compatible with existing packaging production lines 🇮🇱 Phytolon, which produces natural food colors via precision fermentation, has secured an undisclosed investment from Rich Products Corporation Ventures and other investors incl. EIT Food 🇳🇱 Cultivated meat startup Meatable has fetched a strategic investment from Betagro Ventures, VC arm of Thai agrifood/meat company Betagro. Meatable had totaled $95M in capital funding before this round. The company now plans to expand its market presence in Asia 🇺🇸 Oishii has banked another $16M in financing (this time from Resilience Reserve), bringing total funding to $150M. The company runs high-tech indoor production facilities for luxury Koyo and Omakase strawberries, that are then sold for about $10 per 8-count at e.g. Whole Foods Market and other grocers. Oishii also sells Rubi Tomato products 💡Conversation with Lawrence Pratt of ClearLeaf 🎙️ Investment Climate podcast highlights (hosted by Alex Shandrovsky) with Jake Berber of Prefer | bean-free coffee 🤩 New job at Fermify ...and much more! Subscribe now at: https://lnkd.in/dZ_FvGYt #foodtechweekly #FoodTech #agtech #startups #funding #tech

Some highlights from FoodTech Weekly #222 (https://lnkd.in/dnHFrUVR) which was sent this morning: 🇩🇪 Klim has closed a $22M Series A round, led by BNP Paribas and joined by e.g. AgFunder, Earthshot Ventures, Elevator Ventures, and Rabobank. The company gives farmers the tools to plan, execute, and finance the transition to regenerative farming, track their progress, and prove it to supply chain partners in order to earn revenue payouts for sequestered carbon 🇺🇸 Shiru has raised a $16M Series B led by S2G Ventures and backed by e.g. CPT Capital and Nourish Ventures. They company has built a discovery platform and marketplace for proteins called ProteinDiscovery.ai which helps companies identify and test various types of proteins 🇩🇰 NitroVolt has harvested €3.5M (appr. $3.7M) in Seed funding from investors incl. BackingMinds, Export and Investment Fund of Denmark, EQT Foundation, Satgana, and DivisionM. The company develops a method to decentrally produce sustainable green ammonia to help decarbonize farming 🇩🇪 feld.energy GmbH, which empowers farmers to use their land for a combination of agriculture and electricity generation using PV solar, has scored €1.7M (appr. $1.8M) in preseed funding led by HV Capital and joined by e.g. Angel Invest, Coinvest Capital, and a bunch of angel investors 🇫🇮 Happy Plant Protein, a spinout from VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, has bagged €1.8M (appr. $1.9M) in a round led by Nordic FoodTech VC and joined by Butterfly Ventures, as well as a grant from Business Finland. Happy Plant Protein’s technology allows for the production of high-quality plant proteins with existing extrusion machinery, avoiding the need to establish expensive dedicated facilities 🇩🇪 Oceanloop has reeled in €35M (appr. $37M) in an European Investment Bank (EIB) loan to expand in Germany and Spain. The company does indoor farming (RAS) of shrimp and fish 🇬🇧 ZELP ltd, which develops a low-cost, cattle wearable technology to mitigate methane emissions, has received a $4.9M grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation aimed at accelerating validation of ZELP’s cattle methane mitigation device 🇧🇪 Aphea.Bio has landed €1.9M (appr. $2M) from VLAIO - Flanders Innovation & Entrepreneurship for its its biostimulant INITIA that improves nutrient uptake efficiency resulting in better grain yields and reduced reliance on chemical fertilizer 🇳🇱 Solaq has secured €1.4M (appr. $1.5M) in preseed; the startup has developed a solar-powered technology that uses heat instead of electricity to produce water, allowing water to be extracted from the air, off-grid, 24/7, even in dry places like deserts 🤩 New jobs at Volta Greentech 🎙️ Investment Climate podcast highlights (hosted by Alex Shandrovsky) with Anik Thaler of Fabas Foods AG ...and much more! Subscribe now at: https://lnkd.in/dZ_FvGYt #foodtechweekly #FoodTech #agtech #startups #funding #tech