FoodTech Weekly #4 by Daniel S. Ruben

FoodTech Weekly #4

Hi there,

Well, it's finally summer - the best day of the year in Scandinavia. Things slow down until mid-August. So I'll have fewer interesting conversations to share nuggets of wisdom from -- but luckily there's always plenty of fascinating news happening in the FoodTech world worth mentioning. For me, this week's most exciting story is BIOMILQ's $3.5M funding round (more below). Cultured breastmilk is a technology whose environmental, nutritional, and moral benefits are too great to ignore.

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Highligths

• Conversations: N/A

• Noteworthy: BIOMILQ raises $3.5M; Beyond starts European production 

• The Profile: Bruce Friedrich

• Random Stuff: How VCs make money. The world is getting better. And more.

Conversations

Noteworthy​

• BIOMILQ (where I'm an advisor) announced Monday that they had closed a $3.5M Seed round (coverage in e.g. CNBC, Business Insider, Food Navigator, and The Spoon) Investors in the round included Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Blue Horizon Ventures, Purple Orange Ventures, and Shazi Visram (Breakthrough is a $1B climate-focused fund, backed by e.g. Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Michael Bloomberg, Richard Branson, Jack Ma, and Masayoshi Son). BIOMILQ is producing cultured breastmilk, using bioreactors. It's sort of like brewing beer. The funding will be used to intensify R&D and production efforts, and expand the team. I'm excited about BIOMILQ because it's more sustainable and nutritious than infant formula (which is based on cow's milk). This could improve the lives of millions of people, in both low-, mid-, and high-income countries. The commercial launch is likely 5+ years away, and regulatory will be a key obstacle. Other companies in same space worth following are Turtle Tree Labs (Singapore) and Helaina (New York).

  

  Leila Strickland (Co-Founder and CSO) & Michelle Egger (Co-Founder and CEO), BIOMILQ. Photo: Nick Verrochi

• Dutch grocery retailer Albert Heijn introduces DNA traceability system for pork. The COVID pandemic has increased the focus on improving transparency and traceability in the food system, and several new initiatives are being launched. COVID-19 will also accelerate food system automation. Here's a few examples from San Francisco, in the downstream food chain.

• LIVEKINDLY acquired Swedish plant-based meat company Oumph. The acquisition sum wasn't announced, but given Oumph's SEK 93M (appr. $10M) annual revenue, I assume the price might've been in that range.

• Beyond Meat (which sells plant-based meat in almost 100K locations in 75 countries) is starting production in the Netherlands, and is getting closer to price parity with animal-meat; Zhenmeat, 'China's Beyond Meat', meanwhile launched plant-based pork and crayfish products.

• French seaweed company Algaia raised a €2.2M round; it's algae ingredients are used in both e.g. conventional cheese production, as well as for plant-based meats.

• Israeli precision ag company Greeneye raised a $7M round from Syngenta, Jerusalem Venture Partners, TechStars, and a few others. The startup, which has raised almost $15M so far, can precision spray chemicals on weeds, instead of spraying an entire field. The method saves 65-92% on herbicide use, according to the startup. Here's cool 1 min video on how it works.

The Portrait

Bruce Friedrichis Co-Founder and Executive Director of the non-profit Good Food Institute(GFI). He spent the majority of his adult life trying to convince everyone to stop eating meat, eggs, and dairy - e.g. by doing grassroots campaigns for PETA (he once stripped and streaked in front of Buckingham Palace for a publicly stunt - go ahead, do a Google Image search). He always felt that the world was on the cusp of an eating revolution - that the public would shift to other diets, rapidly. But his efforts weren't met with great success. Per capita meat consumption kept increasing globally. He realized that people were going to eat as much meat as they could afford - so he decided that we just needed to produce what people wanted (meat, dairy, and egg) -- without using animals. In less than 5 years, Bruce co-founded GFI and saw the organization grow to over 70+ staff, with offices in the U.S., U.K., India, Israel, Asia Pacific, and Brazil. GFI provides strategic support to alternative protein startups, supports breakthroughs in science and innovation, educates and engages with policymakers, students, food industry, and much more. GFI today is likely the leading global organization to effectuate a shift towards alternative ways of producing and distributing the (currently animal-sourced) foods that people love and crave. Here's Bruce's most recent TEDx Talk, delivered in India. It's 13 minutes and worth a watch.

Random Stuff

• How VCs make money (long but interesting read).

• ​Why VC investors pass on startups (2 min read)

• Mid-year reminder: The world is still getting better (2 min read)

• One month away from Round 1 deadline for the Precision Protein and Soil 3.0 Deep Dive Foodshots! FoodShot invests millions of dollars in equity, so this is worth checking out, if you're working on protein or soil issues.

​​I love you.
Daniel
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Disclosures: I'm a consultant to the Rockefeller Foundation Food Team. I'm a mentor at accelerators Katapult Ocean, Big Idea Ventures, and Bloomer. I'm an advisor to Noquo Foods, BIOMILQ, Volta Greentech, Veat, IRRIOT, Rootically, Holistal, Vultus, and Ignitia; 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 as regards to any investment, divestment or retention decision taken by readers of this newsletter content.