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- FoodTech Weekly #219 by Daniel S. Ruben
FoodTech Weekly #219 by Daniel S. Ruben
News on FoodTech, food, and society
Daniel S. Ruben
October 25, 2024 • Estimated Reading Time: 13 minutes
FoodTech Weekly #219
Hi there,
I’m going to FoodTech Forum in Malmo (🇸🇪) on Nov 12, and TONIC Summit (🇫🇮) in Helsinki on Nov 19. Carpool anyone?
This week's rundown:
💶 FarmDroid raises €10.5M for autonomous, solar-powered weed control robots
🌊 Hatch Blue reels in €93M for new fund focused on aquaculture and alt seafood
💦 There are now prenatal gummies for men to boost the, well, baby gravy
Let's go!
💰 Funding
🇺🇸 Carbon Robotics has bagged $70M in Series D funding led by BOND and joined by e.g. NVentures, Anthos Capital, Fuse Venture Capital, Ignition Partners, Revolution, Sozo Ventures, and Voyager Capital. The company’s core product is the LaserWeeder ag robot, capable of zapping 5,000 weeds per minute.
🇩🇪 Infinite Roots, which grows mycelium cells that are used for alternative protein products, has secured €2.6M (appr. $2.8M) in grant funding from the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture in Germany. The grant will fund research to upcycle whey into a feedstock for mycelium fermentation (btw, I interviewed Infinite Roots Founder/CEO Mazen Rizk four years ago and he dropped a lot of thought-provoking one-liners).
🇬🇧 Microlub, which develops a fat replacement for lower calorie plant-based foods, has scored £3.5M (appr. $4.5M) in Seed funding. The round was led by Northern Gritstone and joined by e.g. Praetura Ventures and LIFFT. Microlub says it enables its customers to cut fat content and calorie count in their products by up to 75% without any noticeable sensory change in mouthfeel and texture.
🇦🇺 Viridian Renewable Technology has scooped up $2.5M from Breakthrough Victoria; the company says it has Australia’s first large-scale insect protein manufacturing plant to convert food waste into insect-based protein and fertilizer (h/t ClimateHack)
🇩🇰 FarmDroid, which develops autonomous, solar-powered robots for weed control, has harvested €10.5M (appr. $11.4M) in funding, in a round led by Convent Capital and joined by e.g. Export and Investment Fund of Denmark (EIFO) and Navus Ventures.
FarmDroid
🇮🇳 BioPrime has completed a $6M Series A round led by Edaphon and joined by e.g. Omnivore and Inflexor Ventures to continue developing biofungicides, bioinsecticides, and biostimulants.
🇨🇭 UMAMI has netted CHF 4.3M (appr. $5M) in Series A funding to expand its ‘holistic’ indoor farming operations. The company supplies microgreens to 450+ retail stores and 400 restaurants across Switzerland (h/t FoodHack)
🇺🇸 Tufts University has been awarded $2.1M by the government of Massachusetts and MassTech to establish FEAST (the Foodtech Engineering for Alternative Sustainable Technologies), which aims to advance cellular agriculture at Tufts, especially cultivated meat and other cell-based products.
🇮🇪 Hatch Blue, which invests in aquaculture and alt seafood startups, has closed €93M (appr. $101M) for its second fund, the Blue Revolution Fund. Investors include e.g. the European Investment Fund, the Irish Strategic Investment Fund, and Germany’s Rentenbank.
🇲🇽 Jüsto, an online grocery platform in Mexico, Brazil and Peru that uses AI for demand forecasting and food waste reduction, has drummed up $70M in equity and debt funding from General Atlantic and HSBC México.
Jüsto
🎙️ Investment Climate: Nemailla Bonturi of ÄIO shares how to get funded in 2024
This week, Alex Shandrovsky talked to Nemailla Bonturi, co-founder of ÄIO, which are producing more sustainable fats and oils by using yeasts and upcycling side streams from industry and agriculture (episode available on Spotify and Apple). She spoke about the strategic approach to fundraising, challenges with European regulations, and the importance of versatile revenue streams. She also highlighted how local government grants played a pivotal role in setting up their pilot plant and expanding the team by providing €1.8M in non-dilutive funding, which also improved their valuation.
Three top findings from the conversation:
Prioritize Shorter Commercial Regulatory Path - Cosmetics are usually quicker than food in terms of regulation. ‘Our investors understand that novel food will take time. We're going to apply in the U.S. but also we are aiming for other verticals such as cosmetics. We’ve got one process, one product, but a very diverse application. And we are very driven towards the price.’
Serendipitous Investor Connection at a Local Event. The company met its lead investor, 2C Ventures, through an unexpected encounter with an LP during a local event in Tallinn.
When choosing scale-up partners, make sure they speak your business language - in this case it was Singapore. ‘I think the first part is finding the partner that has all the CAPEX you need. We work with side streams. It's not like rocket science that we need very fancy equipment. But of course we need to have the right set of equipment. So they have to be flexible towards our know-how. The second point, what made AIO go to Singapore is the speed. They're very flexible, they are very good business people.’
Investment Climate
🧐 Noteworthy
🌐 The World Bank is set to double agriculture investments to $9B per year by 2030, aiming to advance digital technologies and improve farm productivity as climate change is simultaneously addressed.
⚰️ French urban farming startup Jungle, which raised €42M as late as 2021 from e.g. Demeter Partners and Founders Future, has filed for bankruptcy, Jungle CEO/Co-Founder Nicolas Seguy writes on LinkedIn.
🌍 Around 733M people — or 1 in 11 humans — worldwide faced hunger in 2023, according to the most recent State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) report by the FAO and other UN agencies. About 35.5% of people worldwide are unable to afford a healthy diet, although that number is down from 36.5% in 2021.
🫒 Thieves have stolen $2.5M worth of olive oil in a Houston heist (h/t Ambrook)
🥘 Swedish organic saffron farming company Österlensaffran has launched a new autonomous saffron harvesting robot, which uses AI vision to navigate and operate (h/t AGFO):
Österlensaffran
🌎 Food waste is responsible for 14% of U.S. methane emissions, ReFED says.
💰Chilean food processing company Carozzi has launched a corporate VC arm (Carozzi Ventures), which will deploy $6M into up to 10 startups over the next three years, in verticals such as in Agtech, FoodTech, supply chain, advanced manufacturing, and pet care.
🌍 News from the FoodTech Weekly community
👨🏻💻 GFI (Japan) is looking for a Managing Director… Nosh Bio (Germany) is recruiting a Food Safety / Quality Assurance Manager.
💷 SHAKE has just opened a call for applications to join their 5th cohort of entrepreneurs and start-ups in the AgriFoodTech sector that deliver a positive impact on climate change. It is an opportunity to gain extensive business mentorship and £125K in seed capital to turn ideas into reality. Ventures must be incorporated in the U.K. by the time of investment. Incorporation prior to application not necessary. Apply before Jan 6, 2025.
SHAKE has helped establish a portfolio of 11 ventures since 2020 which have collectively gone on to raise over £16M. of seed capital. SHAKE is a consortium-based programme that brings together experts from Rothamsted Research, Cranfield University, University College London and the University of Hertfordshire.
SHAKE
Want to share some FoodTech news/project with other FoodTech Weekly subscribers? Hit reply.
🎲 Random Stuff
🌵 The mayor of German town Plettenberg has banned cactus plants from all municipal buildings (such as the Town Hall, nurseries, daycares, and schools) after a man injured himself on the prickly plant in a school and needed medical treatment.
🚒 A brand new fire station in Stadtallendorf, Germany, burned down after a fire dep’t vehicle containing lithium-ion batteries and an external power connection ignited. The blaze caused €20M (appr. $21.5M) worth of damages, but no one was injured. Oh — and the facility had not been equipped with a fire alarm system.
💊 Prenatal gummies for men is now a thing (h/t Snaxshot). Mate & Me says their supplements support overall sperm cell health, sperm count, and sperm mobility.
🪨 An Australian woman out hiking with friends dropped her phone between some boulders, tried to retrieve it, but got stuck — upside down — for 7 hours until she could be rescued. The phone was not retrieved.
💸 The planning documentation for the Lower Thames Crossing, a proposed tunnel under River Thames, has cost £297M (appr. $385M). That’s more than twice as much as it cost in Norway to actually build the longest road tunnel in the world. The Lower Thames Crossing planning document runs to 360K pages; if the pages would be laid end to end, that would be far longer than the actual tunnel.
🚴🏽 Well, it’s Adelaide — not much else to do 👇
I love you.
Daniel
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🎵 This issue was produced while listening to No Surprises by Radiohead.
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