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FoodTech Weekly #84 by Daniel S. Ruben
News on FoodTech, food, and society
Daniel S. Ruben
January 28, 2022 • Estimated Reading Time: 12 minutes
FoodTech Weekly #84
Hi there,
I went to Paris earler this week for work (flight CO2 emissions offset via Trine). It was my first visit to the City of Light (yes, it was amazing), and in case you didn't know, the Eiffel Tower is huge up close.
Ça plane pour moi
OK, let's get down to business. The Norrsken Impact Accelerator, where I'm a mentor, is open for applications until Feb 28. The 20 impact startups accepted will receive an $125K investment, convene in Stockholm this summer, and be mentored by founders of unicorn companies like Klarna, Mojang (Minecraft), Oatly, Kry, and Soundcloud. And yours truly. If you're an early-stage startup, apply. Because if you win, we all win.
This week's rundown:
On the wall: Walmart and others invest in $400M Series E round of vertical farming startup Plenty
Winner winner chicken dinner: Experts now can't tell the difference between conventional and cultivated chicken
I, Robot: Starship Technologies secures $50M to build thousands of robots
Let's go!
Conversations
Sandra Malmberg and I (somewhat) recently had a chance to speak with Sara Marquart, co-founder and CTO of German startup QOA,/ for our podcast The Appetizer. Everyone loves chocolate (in most Western countries, people consume between 4-9 kgs, or 9-20 lbs., of chocolate per capita, every year) but the cocoa farming industry uses millions of child laborers, and results in massive deforestation and water use (higher than for beef). So Sara and her brother Max started QOA to explore whether it'd be possible to use precision fermentation to replace mass market chocolate. In short, the company can use leftover food residues from e.g. olives and grapeseeds, and recreate the composition of cocoa. The fermented ingredients are then used to make alternative chocolate. Today, the company has raised $6M in Seed funding, and hopes to scale production over the next decade to achieve price parity with the average chocolate bar. Listen to the full episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or wherever you find your podcasts.
Noteworthy
U.S. vertical farming company Plenty announced a $400M Series E round, led by One Madison Group and JS Capital, and joined by Walmart and SoftBank. The company also brought on a new CEO, Arama Kukutai, the co-founder and partner of FoodTech and AgTech fund Finistere Ventures. Plenty has now raised $935M in total. Later this year, Walmart's 250 stores in California will start selling Plenty's leafy greens, both under the Plenty brand as well as Walmart's private label.
Redefine Meat of Israel, which produces 3D printed plant-based meat, has raised a $135M round, led by Hanaco Ventures and Synthesis Capital. The round was was months ago but only announced now. In the interim, the company has hired 100+ people. Israel currently boasts more than 400 FoodTech companies.
In a recent public blind taste test conducted by Israeli cultivated meat startup SuperMeat, the experts were unable to tell the difference between conventional chicken and cultivated chicken grown by SuperMeat. Video here.
Image: LinkedIn
Cultured meat startup UPSIDE Foods, formerly known as Memphis Meats, has acquired cultivated seafood startup Cultured Decadence. This is the first acquisition of UPSIDE, and brings expertise in crustaceans (especially cell lines) to the company. Cultured Decadence was founded in 2020, and I interviewed John Pattison, the CEO and Co-Founder, in November that year, for FoodTech Weekly.
IntegriCulture of Japan has nabbed $7M in Series A+ funding. The company produces growth media for cultivated meat companies, to help bring down costs of these new products.
Starship Technologies, which develops last-mile delivery robots, has secured a $50M facility agreement with the European Investment Bank. Starship now plans to build 'thousands' of more robots.
Speaking about robots: Open Ocean Robotics is building autonomous boats that can go far offshore and weather storms (fully sealed, they will not sink unless broken). The boat is outfitted with a number of sensors that measure everything from the weather to the health of marine life. Since almost a quarter of fish sold in the U.S. has been caught illegally, Open Ocean Robotics also hope that their boats will make life harder for poachers.
Open Oceans Robotics
U.S. startup Wild Earth, which produces plant-protein and fungi-protein pet food, secured a $10M credit facility from Espresso Capital.
Unovis Asset Management, which manages e.g. New Crop Capital, has closed an oversubscribed €146M second fund (appr. $166M). The VC firm has invested in 63 companies to date, including Oatly and Beyond Meat. Meanwhile in the Netherlands, StartLife announced it'll invest €6M in agrifoodtech startups.
Swedish wireless irrigation automation startup IRRIOT has closed a €550,000 round [full disclosure: I'm an advisor to IRRIOT], backed by LRF Ventures. IRRIOT stands for IRRigation Internet Of Things. By automating irrigation and letting a central unit decide the optimal time to irrigate, the water consumption is reduced by up to 50%, and harvests are increased by up to 30%. The company was founded in Sweden in 2018 and currently has 120 customers in 16 countries.
Israeli alternative protein startup ChickP announced a $8M Series A round, backed by Genisys Capital Private and Growthwell Foods. The company, which uses chickpea protein to develop various food products, recently opened an office in Singapore.
Image: ChickP
A new peer-reviewed study comparing the environmental performance of online recipe boxes with supermarket grocery retail shopping showed that, on average, the carbon emissions of the recipe box meals are 10.8% less than those equivalent meals bought from a supermarket retail store.
The All of Us Research Program at U.C. Davis has been awarded a five-year, $12.9M million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to 'study the potential of customized diet recommendations to promote health and prevent disease, known as precision nutrition'. The scientists hope that the findings can help better treat diseases like type 2 diabetes, obesity, and cancer, and improve overall health outcomes.
Aigen, which produces weed-pulling robots, has raked in $4M in Seed funding from NEA, AgFunder, Global Founders Capital, and ReGen Ventures.
Kula Bio, a U.S. startup developing biological fertilizer, has banked a $50M Series A round. Founded in 2018, Kula's microbial product Kula-N can replace synthethic fertilizer - at a lower price and with a higher yield, while building soil carbon and eliminating nitrogen runoff, the company claims. Kula-N, which is non-GMO, should be available to customers within 12 months.
How Big Beef is contributing to deforestation of the Amazon. Important piece by Bloomberg.
News from the FoodTech Weekly community
Novameat (Spain) is hiring for several roles, including Senior Extrusion Engineer and Senior Food Scientist... GFI Europe is recruiting a Science and Technology Community Coordinator... myAgro (Senegal) is looking for a Deputy COO... C16 Biosciences (US) is on the hunt for a Food Scientist... Formo (Germany) has an open role for a Junior Social Media Manager... Impossible Foods (US) is hiring a Product Manager
The Food Planet Prize (which hands out two $2M awards) is open for applications.
Want to share some FoodTech news/project with other FoodTech Weekly subscribers? Hit reply.
Random Stuff
Cheezam. Like Shazam, but for identifying French cheese, using an AI app.
Finland has a plan to end all waste by 2050. Here's the inside story, by TIME.
I might have shared this before, but it's worth sharing again: Famines are becoming more rare.
Source: Our World In Data
Reasonable: Hong Kong residents are using private jets to bring their pets out of the city
Our thoughts and prayers to the marketing team at Weber, which emailed its subscribers a recipe for BBQ Meat Loaf on the same day the passing of rockstar Marvin Lee Aday, a.k.a. Meat Loaf, was announced. Weber then had to send out an apology email:
And finally: To celebrate the 1-year anniversary of its new Official Dietary Guidelines, The Danish Veterinary and Food Administration released this music video, titled 'What the f*ck is a legume?'. Unfortunately no subtitles, but it's catchy.
I love you.
Daniel
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This issue was produced while listening to Ni**as in Paris by JAY-Z and Kanye West. 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.