FoodTech Weekly #207 by Daniel S. Ruben

FoodTech Weekly #207

Hi there,

This was my week, enjoying some time off in west and south Sweden:

But I still managed to pull together a newsletter. Plenty of exciting news this week (and a bankruptcy, perhaps less exciting).

This week's rundown:

• Monarch banks $133M for its autonomous, electric tractors

• Plenty enters $680M JV with Mawarid to expand vertical farming in the GCC

• The ATM machine dispensing free sausage rolls

Let's go!

Conversations

Noteworthy

• Vertical farming scaleup Plenty of the U.S. is forming a joint venture with Mawarid in a $680M deal to build a network of indoor farms in the GCC countries over the next five years, starting with premium strawberries. The GCC currently imports more than 85% of their food.

• Onego Bio of Finland has secured €14M (appr. $15.2M) in funding from EIC Accelerator and other investors, bringing its total funding to date north of $70M; the company produces bio-identical egg protein using precision fermentation.

• NoPalm Ingredients of Wageningen, the Netherlands, has harvested €5M (appr. $5.4M) in funding from Rubio Impact Ventures, Oost NL, Fairtree Elevant Ventures, Willow Capital Investments, The Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO) and other private investors. The company upcycles locally sourced ag sidestreams such as e.g. potato peels and uses non-GMO yeasts to ferment these ingredients into yeast oils that can substitute palm oil.

• Agrobiomics of Copenhagen, Denmark has bagged €4M (appr. $4.3M) in funding from NOON Ventures. The company develops a biological solution to increase the climate resilience of plants (to abiotic stressors like drought and salinity).

• Monarch Tractor of the U.S. has raised a record-breaking (for ag robotics) $133M funding round for its self-driving electric tractors. The round was co-led by Astanor and HH-CTBC Partnership. To date, Monarch has secured $220M+ in funding. The company’s tractors have a 14 hour runtime and can be run remotely by the farmers.

• Meu Pescado of Brazil has reeled in a fresh catch of $420K in funding led by Aimorés Investimentos and Japan’s Incubate Fund, and joined by angel investors. The company helps fish farmers with limited internet connectivity to monitor animal health, feed use, and water quality.

• Swedish insect producer (for food and animal feed) Tebrito has filed for bankruptcy, as first reported by Impact Loop. Founded in 2016, Tebrito had raised a total of SEK 45M (appr. $4.1M) and was rearing mealworms (aka Tenebrio molitor).

• AgFunder VC, which invests in AgriFoodTech startups globally, has completed the closing of its fourth early-stage fund, Fund IV, at an oversubscribed $102M. The news comes just weeks after the firm announced it will take over the $100M Blue Horizon Growth Fund.

• German agrivoltaics startup diveo has netted a €200K (appr. $217K) preseed round; the company merges solar energy production and agriculture.

• Insect-as-feed company Entocycle of the U.K. has opened a new insect rearing R&D facility at the University of Leeds in Yorkshire. It also announced that it has raised a further $2.6M in funding. This follows the company’s $5.4M Series A round in January 2023.

• Permia Sensing of London, U.K. has secured a £150K (appr. $190K) grant from the British Design Fund. The company e.g. uses sensors that enable the early detection of damaging pests.

• University of Waterloo students have secured $700K in grants from GFI, Mitacs, and New Harvest to expand their research in advancing cultivated seafood — e.g. by predicting and enhancing cell behavior, and creating detailed genomic and proteomic profiles.

• RxDiet of New York has netted a $3M Seed round led by Giant Ventures, aiming to drive down healthcare costs using AI-driven food as medicine. The company uses AI to create medically tailored food plans and behavioral support, delivering them directly to patients with chronic illnesses such as diabetes and hypertension (high blood pressure).

• Could robot weedkillers replace the need for pesticides? (The Guardian)

• Finnish protein from air-company Solar Foods plans to go public on the Helsinki Stock Exchange.

News from the FoodTech Weekly community

• C40 Cities (U.S.) is looking for a Senior Manager, US Food Systems.

• Want to nominate a startup for Forward Fooding’s FoodTech 500? Do it here. Want to early-bird apply for your own company? Do it here, by July 31, 2024.

• The Periodic Table of Precision Fermentation by RethinkX is always fun to play around with.

Want to share some FoodTech news/project with other FoodTech Weekly subscribers? Hit reply.

Random Stuff

• How billionaires die (NY Magazine)

• An ATM machine in Newcastle is dispensing free sausage rolls.

• Why Do So Many Food Documentaries Seem to Think We’re Stupid? (New York Times)

• The lightbulb conspiracy, an industry-wide planned obsolescence in the 1920s (h/t Azeem Azhar).

• The market for significant software IPO’s is looking not so great:

• There’s a vibrant black market for artwork stolen from the walls of Taco Bell restaurants across the U.S. (h/t Dragos Novac).

• Sharks off the Brazilian coast have tested positive for cocaine.

​I love you.
Daniel

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This issue was produced while listening to One Night In Bangkok - Radio Edit by Murray Head. Follow me on LinkedIn and Twitter. Did your brilliant friend forward this to you? Subscribe here.

Disclosures: I'm founder of Solvable Syndicate. I’m an operating advisor to VC/investment firms Nordic FoodTech VC, Mudcake, and Blume Equity. I'm a mentor at accelerators Katapult Ocean, Big Idea Ventures, and Norrsken Accelerator. I'm an advisor to BIOMILQ, FoodHack, Hooked, Ignitia, Improvin, IRRIOT, Juicy Marbles, Lupinta, NitroCapt, Oceanium, petgood, Rootically, Stockeld Dreamery, Transship, VEAT, and Volta Greentech; in some of these startups, I have equity.

Boring disclaimer: The newsletter content is intended only to provide general and preliminary information to folks interested in FoodTech, and shall not be construed as the basis for any investment decision or strategy. I assume no liability in regards to any investment, divestment, or retention decision taken by readers of this newsletter content.