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- FoodTech Weekly #59 by Daniel S. Ruben
FoodTech Weekly #59 by Daniel S. Ruben
News on FoodTech, food, and society
Daniel S. Ruben
July 23, 2021 • Estimated Reading Time: 11 minutes
FoodTech Weekly #59
Hi there,
This week, Nobell Foods came out of stealth and announced a $75M Series B raise (one of the investors in the round was the $19B VC Andreessen Horowitz, marking '16z's' first investment into alt protein). The startup has genetically modified soy plants to express casein, a key dairy protein that essentially enables a range of characteristics (taste, texture etc) needed to produce 'real' dairy products. Nobell's approach is different from that of many well-funded startups fermenting dairy protein from yeast. The bioengineering component of Nobell's product means there will be significant challenges in bringing this to market (regulatory and consumer acceptance obstacles) but if the company succeeds, it could change the game.
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One of the companies I advise,VEAT, is hiring an Operations Manager. The company deploys a network of vending machines selling plant-based grab & go foods, starting in Stockholm, Sweden. If you know someone outstanding, please tell them to apply. This is a really exciting opportunity, and I think the world needs initiatives like VEAT (FoodHack+ recently featured VEAT in their paywalled briefing on 30+ vending machine FoodTech startups).
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My old team at The Rockefeller Foundation has released an important new report, 'True Cost of Food: Measuring What Matters to Transform the U.S. Food System'. U.S. consumers spend $1.1 trillion on food every year (which includes the cost of producing, processing, retailing, and wholesaling the food we buy and eat) -- but if including the cost of healthcare for the millions of people falling ill from diet-related disease, and the environmental costs of food production (water and air pollution, reduced biodiversity, and greenhouse gas emission), the true cost of the U.S. food system is at least three times as big, $3.2 trillion per year. Executive Summary of the report here.
Enjoy your weekend!
Highlights
Conversations: N/A
Noteworthy: Pivot Bio raises $430M to replace synthetic nitrogen in agriculture; Nature's Fynd scores $350M to bring fungi-derived protein to consumers globally; Rise Gardens takes in $9M for at-home hydroponic growing system; Ignitia secures $4.2M to bring hyperlocal weather forecasts to 200M smallholder farmers; France and Germany bans chick culling; the WTO fails to reach deal on harmful fishing subsidies
News from the FoodTech Weekly community
Random Stuff: Exciting job opening for a taco expert; inmate kebab pizza craving; list of ag podcasts. And more.
Conversations
Noteworthy
Pivot Bio of Berkeley, California, has taken in $430M in Series D funding, to replace synthetic nitrogen in agriculture. Synthetic nitrogen fertilizer is not only a major expense for farmers, its also a significant contributor to climate change. Pivot Bio sells microbes to farmers that put them into the soil; the microbes capture nitrogen from the atmosphere, converting it into nutrients for crops. In related news, Gaïago of France raised €13M ($15.4M) for its biological crop products. The company has products that e.g. fix nitrogen in the soil and improve root nutrition, reducing the need for chemical-based fertilizers.
Nature's Fynd, of Chicago, Illinois, has raised a $350M Series C round. The company plans to commercialize products from a fungi-derived protein found in a geothermal spring in the Yellowstone National Park. In 2022, the company will start selling products to consumers on a large scale in the U.S., and expand to new geographies including Asia.
London-based startup Collectiv Foods has banked £12M ($16.5M) in its Series A funding round. The company connects food producers with customers using a B2B food marketplace. Collectiv sources food directly from thousands of food producers, and delivers directly to commercial kitchens such as restaurants, hotels, meal kit companies, ghost kitchens and stores -- thus cutting out the middlemen. This enables more traceability, and lower prices. And in related news, Choco of Berlin, which aims to digitize the food supply chain, has raised $100M in Series B.
Multus Media, of London, U.K., has announced a $2.2M Seed Round. The startup develops a growth serum which enables cell-based meat companies to lower costs when growing meat in bioreactors.
Rise Gardens, which develops and sells a hydroponic growing system for at-home use, has raised $9M in Series A. The company provided the farming system including seed pods and nutrients for the water, that enables people to grow things at home, in an efficient way.
Image: Rise Gardens
Reduced, of Copenhagen, Denmark, has scooped up $385K in pre-seed funding. The company uses food industry side streams, and upcycles them to products that focus on 'deep and intense umami flavors'.
German startup Her1 has raised €5.5M in Series A, led by French FoodTech VC Five Seasons Ventures. Her1 develops products to improve the female gut microbiome, and currently sells to consumers in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.
Swedish startup Ignitia, which offers hyper-local weather forecasts for 2 million smallholder farmers, has raked in $4.2M in fresh funding. The round included investors such as Novastar Ventures, IKEA, Future Foodways, Mercy Corps, Norrsken VC, and FINCA International. The investment will be used to increase Ignitia's footprint in Sub-Saharan Africa and Brazil. I interviewed Ignitia's CEO and Founder, Liisa Smits, for #3 of FoodTech Weekly.
Impossible Foods is launching its second product, plant-based chicken nuggets, in an increasingly crowded market (with actors like Beyond Meat, Nowadays, daring, Planted, THIS, VFC, and many others already offering or planning to offer plant-based chicken nuggets).
France and Germany will ban chick culling, according to Food Navigator. Each year, millions of male chicks are killed because they cannot lay eggs, and they don't grow as fast as hens (used for meat). New gender testing technology has now enabled chicken producers to stop the practice of male chick culling.
Male chicks about to get culled
The World Trade Organization has failed to reach a deal on 'harmful fishing subsidies', and pushed back the deadline for making a deal until September 2021. In other seafood-related news, Shiok Meats of Singapore, which cell-cultivates seafood, just raised an undisclosed amount of funding in a new bridge round. Also, a new scientific paper says that climate change threatens food security of many countries dependent on fish.
News from the FoodTech Weekly community
Rockstart is recruiting an AgriFood Program Lead... Protix has a number of open positions... Revo Foods is looking to bring on e.g. food technologists and mechatronic engineers... Geltor has an open role for Fermentation Technician... VEAT is hiring an Operations Manager... Vevolution is recruitinga CEO.
FoodHack has started a cool new service, connecting advisors and startups. So if you're a startup looking for advisors, or an advisor looking to support a startup, check it out.
Vevolution shared new data showing that over $130M of funding has been sought after on the Vevolution platform (which caters to plant-based and cell-based startups).
Want to share some FoodTech news/project with other FoodTech Weekly subscribers? Hit reply.
Random Stuff
A list of 45 agriculture podcasts to follow.
Learning to love GMOs. Great piece from the NYT.
The lie of 'expired' food -- important long-read from Vox.
McCormick & Company is hiring a Director of Taco Relations. The position runs from September to December 2021, and pays a total of $100,000. No prior experience is necessary, but McCormick is looking for someone with 'an interest in all things tacos'.
Two prison guards were taken hostage this week at a prison in Sweden. The two convicts demanded a helicopter and 20 kebab pizzas for themselves and their fellow inmates (only the latter demand was met). The two guards were eventually freed, and the hostage takers were brought to a police station.
I love you.
Daniel
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This issue was produced while listening to Goodnight Moon by Boogie Belgique. Follow me on LinkedIn and Twitter (I'm @danielsruben on Clubhouse). Did your brilliant friend forward this to you? Subscribe here.