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- FoodTech Weekly #112 by Daniel S. Ruben
FoodTech Weekly #112 by Daniel S. Ruben
Daniel S. Ruben
September 02, 2022 • Estimated Reading Time: 11 minutes
FoodTech Weekly #112
Hi there,
September huh?
I can't wait to go to Tel Aviv for FoodTech IL in November (and not only for the warm weather there). If you plan to attend, use the code FoodTechWeekly10 for a 10% discount on your event ticket.
Correction: That human sheep contest I mentioned last week took place in Canada, not France. Mea culpa.
This week's rundown:
Motatos raises €38M to expand food rescue platform across Europe
Tracegrow picks up funding to turn alkaline batteries into organic certified fertilizers
Scientists discover that old wind turbines can be turned into gummy bears
Let's go!
Conversations
Met with Bram van den Bosch (CEO/Co-founder), Lillian Nassanga (Product Manager), and Dave Agaba of Ugandan agtech / fintech startup Emata. They're currently part of the Norrsken Impact Accelerator (where I'm a mentor). Agriculture is the largest industry in Africa in terms of livelihoods and GDP contribution. Yet African ag yields are 8x-10x lower than in high-income regions, partly because many African farmers cannot access finance that would allow them to become more productive. Emata solves this by digitizing farmer cooperatives (and the transaction data for the past 1-3 years), which means that the individual farmers of the cooperative can be assigned pre-approved credit limits. The farmers can then start taking out loans (the avg. loan amount is $310, at an interest rate 5x lower than from loan sharks / traditional money lenders) to invest in yield-improving inputs. The cooperatives act as loan agents, and when farmers sell their crops to the cooperative, Emata is repaid by the cooperative. 'So far, we've seen a 98% repayment rate', Bram smiles and continues: 'Farmers love us'. Emata works in value chains like dairy, maize, sunflower, soya, and coffee. The company aims to expand its team in Uganda, prepare an East African rollout, and also start offering additional financial and agronomic services. To this end, Emata is currently raising a $500k equity round. Bram can be reached via LinkedIn and email ([email protected])
Dave Agaba, Lillian Nassanga, and Bram van den Bosch
Noteworthy
Swiss plant-based meat scaleup Planted has raised a CHF 70M ($72M) Series B round. The company produces alt chicken, pork, kebab, and schnitzel, and will now expand to e.g. whole-cute chicken breasts. Planted will also boost production capacity, and increase distribution in more European countries.
Swedish food rescue company Motatos has banked €38M in new funding, bringing total funds raised to €130M. Motatos enables FMCG brands to offload surplus inventory, which is then sold online at a discount to consumers. The company is active in the Nordics, Germany, and the U.K.
Mermade, headquartered in Jerusalem, has reeled in a $3.3M Seed round. The startup grows scallops using cellular agriculture.
Finnish startup Tracegrow has discovered a way to produce organic certified fertilizers from used alkaline batteries. The company just received a capital injection from Nordic FoodTech VC (full disclosure: I'm an advisor to NFT VC) bringing its total funding raised to €2.5M.
Vitibot, French ag robot startup focused on wine farming, was acquired this summer by the SDF Group, one of the leading tractor manufactuers in the world (h/t: Matthieu Vincent of DigitalFoodLab).
Image: Vitibot
U.K. cell-cultivated meat startup Ivy Farms is opening what it claims is the largest cultivated meat factory in Europe, located in Oxford. At 18,000 sq. ft (appr. 1,800 sq. m), the factory will be able to produce up to 3 tons of meat each year (fun fact: That could provide 600 people with their weekly fix of 98 grams of red meat for a full year, in line with the EAT-Lancet recommendations).
Sea6 Energy from India has scored an $18.5M Series B round led by BASF Venture Capital and Aqua-Spark. The company grows tropical red seaweed, which can be turned into e.g. animal feed, plant growth and defense stimulants, biofuels, and other materials that replace chemicals and plastics.
Simple Feast of Denmark, which does subscription-based delivery service for ready-made food, made out of organic plant-based ingredients, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy (link in Danish). The company had raised about $104M in total.
EFSA, the European Food Safety Authority, has approved a fourth insect specie as safe for human consumption; the lesser mealworm. The decision comes after an application from French insect-as-feed company Ÿnsect, which wants to use the mealworm in powdered form in e.g. cereals, bars, pasta, and baked goods.
U.S. researchers at Michigan State University have found a way to recycle old wind turbine blades into gummy bears. Yummy, I guess...?
Un-bear-able
'Sustainably' farmed salmon isn't always sustainable.
Dealroom has put together lists of 100 FoodTech startups to watch, and 100 AgTech startups to watch.
Argentina has passed a new law that requires FMCG food brands to label ultra-processed foods with a black octagon covering at least 5% of the package surface. The new labeling system mandates warnings for products high in sugar, saturated fats, calories, and potassium. Similar regulations are already in effect in several other LATAM countries.
Lumachain, an Australian blockchain-enabled food supply chain startup, has clinched $28M in new funding from Bessemer Venture Partners.The company uses machine learning and IoT devices to improve safety and traceability in the food supply chain, starting with meat.
Pattern Ag has snapped up a $35M Series B round. The company has developed data-driven, evidence-based, and long-term predictions about crops risks and nutrient deficiencies in row crops (think corn/maize, soybeans, potatos, sunflowers, sugar beets, etc). This helps farmers make better decisions.
Irish farmers fear they will have to cull many of their cows to meet the government's target of reducing ag emissions with 25% by 2030.
News from the FoodTech Weekly community
Fermify (Austra) is hiring a Head of R&D... Aqua-Spark (Netherlands) is recruiting a Head of Portfolio... UPSIDE Foods is looking for a Sr. Scientist, Analytical R&D... Root (Germany) has a number of open roles... Notpla (U.K.) is hiring a Product Manager... eniferBio (Finland) is recruiting a Food Scientist... Libre Foods (Spain) has an opening for a Founder's Associate Intern... ProVeg (Germany/remote) is hiring a Marketing and Comms Manager.
Apply to pitch at (or as an investor to join) the next FoodHack Demo Day on Oct 11. The application deadline is Sep 18.
Want to share some FoodTech news/project with other FoodTech Weekly subscribers? Hit reply.
Random Stuff
Two tomatoes crossed the road - actually, make that 150,000. A truck in the U.S. spilled that many tomatoes on the Interstate 80 highway, causing a two feet deep (60 cm) sea of red sauce, and bringing traffic to a standstill.
A French street cleaner who livestreams from his job has 260K+ followers on Tik Tok.
Fascinating article on Pennsylvania's forgotten (?) funeral pie.
Due to high energy prices in Europe, a nationwide power saving campaign has been launched in Finland, urging Finns to e.g. take fewer saunas. Says Kati Laakso of state-owned sustainable-energy company Motiva: 'Maybe people don't need to turn on the sauna everyday. Maybe just once a week.'
Hey Siri, what is ageism?
I love you.
Daniel
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This issue was produced while listening to Old Town Road by Lil Nas X. Follow me on LinkedIn and Twitter. And here's the Appetizer which I co-host. Did your brilliant friend forward this to you? Subscribe here.