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FoodTech Weekly #232 by Daniel S. Ruben
News on FoodTech, food, and society
Daniel S. Ruben
February 07, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 13 minutes
#232
Hi there,
Somber mood here in Sweden this week after the worst-ever mass shooting in the country took place on Tuesday at an adult education center, leaving at least 11 people dead (including the suspected shooter).
There’s too much hate in the world. It’s up to us to respond with love and light.
This week's rundown:
💵 Bonsai Robotics nets $15M for smart harvesting robots
👇 Canadian Food Innovation Network (CFIN) launches major ecosystem report
🆓 Why an Alabama baby just scored a year’s supply of free donuts
Let's go!
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💰 Funding
🇳🇱 OneThird has raised €3.5M ($3.65M) in Series A funding; the company develops an AI-powered near-infrared technology which helps cut food waste by accurately predicting produce shelf life. The round was led by Invest International and joined by investors Oost NL, SHIFT Invest, and Pymwymic.
🇧🇪 BiocSol has scored €4.4M ($4.6M) in funding from investors including Pymwymic. The startup develops microbial-based biopesticides that protect crops like potatoes, vegetables and grapes from e.g. mildew (a form of fungus).
🇩🇰 Enduro Genetics has closed a €12M ($12.5M) Series A round from Supernova Invest, NOON Ventures, and Sandwater. The company has patented its ‘synthethic additction’ technology it says could help cut costs and emissions in biomanufacturing, in areas such as alt protein, industrial enzymes, biodegradable materials, and pharma.
🇸🇪 Innoscentia which develops smart food labels that detect bacterial growth in food has bagged €500K ($520K) from a group of Swedish business angels (I interviewed Innoscentia’s CEO back in 2020 for FTW #2!)
🇺🇸 Bonsai Robotics has harvested $15M in Series A financing led by Bison Ventures and joined by e.g. Acre Venture Partners and Fall Line Capital. The AgTech startup builds machines that navigate tough farm environments, helping to harvest e.g. nut crops like almonds and walnuts.
🇳🇱 Mosa Meat, which develops cultured meat, has pulled in more than €2.5M ($2.6M) in crowdfunding.
🇺🇸 PlantBaby, which offers plant-based milk (called Kiki Milk) to kids, has fetched $4M in Seed funding (at a $20M post-money valuation) in a round led by B2 Partners and joined by e.g. Big Idea Ventures and a few other investors.
🇫🇷 Jay&Joy has clinched a €2M ($2.1M) round led by High Flyers Capital, and acquired fellow Parisian vegan artisanal cheese maker Les Nouveaux Affineurs. The company now aims to expand across Europe.
🎙️ Investment Climate: Guy Maurice shares how to get funded in 2025
This week, Alex Shandrovsky met with Guy Maurice, SEAeo and Founder of B’ZEOS, which develops seaweed-based sustainable packaging and recently raised €5M from Faber and ICIG’s VC unit. The full episode can be found on Spotify and Apple.
Top three findings from this conversation:
Phased Fundraising Strategy. B'ZEOS utilized non-dilutive public funding initially, followed by strategic venture capital when ready to scale. “ Before 2024, everything was either public money from different grants that we got or was from paid services.”
Effective Outreach Requires Clear and Simplified Communication. "We needed to sell ourselves, which was not that simple initially. We worked together to make a deep-dive deck. A model that we had not on the strategy, but on turning or on making numbers on our strategy or making investors understand our model basically."
Due Diligence Requires Streamlining Processes and Transparency. "We thought we were clean, but it’s never clean enough. Cleaning up meant organizing IPs registered across different countries and structuring the company for investor confidence."
🧐 Noteworthy
💰 Lever VC announced a first close of its Fund II, with an initial $50M for early-stage investments in AgriFoodTech startups; meanwhile, The 51 announced a CAD$51M ($35M) final close of its early-stage Food and AgTech Fund focused on ag and food innovation, and Forbion BioEconomy Fund (which will invest in four sectors including Food & Ag) said it has raised €164.5M ($171M).
🌱 Interesting primer by Ambrook on electro-agriculture, a method that bypasses photosynthesis by feeding plants acetate produced via electrolysis — allowing growth in complete darkness.
🥀 BIOMILQ, which cultured mammary cells to produce bioactives found in breastmilk, has filed for bankruptcy. The company was struggling with a long-running IP dispute with the ex-husband of one of the founders, which rendered the firm ‘uninvestable and unacquirable’. BIOMILQ had raised $24.5M from investors such as Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Novo Holdings (full disclosure: I was an advisor to BIOMILQ from 2020 onwards).
🤝 Brevel has partnered with Israel’s largest beverage company, CBC Group (national franchiser of e.g. Carlsberg and Coca-Cola), to develop microalgae-enriched beverages and dairy alternatives under a 10-year supply agreement.
🍫 U.K. biotech startup Fermtech has partnered with Abertay University to upcycle spent grains from local breweries and distilleries into a novel ingredient, Koji flour, which can be used to improve the sustainability profile of cocoa (by enhancing the cocoa flavor and reducing the amount of cocoa required in popular chocolate foods by as much as 30%).
Fermtech team left, Abertay team right (Images: Abertay University)
🌍 News from the FoodTech Weekly community
👨🏻💻 Essential (🇰🇪) is recruiting a Research Consultant… FoodFacts (🇸🇪) is hiring a Sustainability Expert… Perfat Technologies (🇫🇮) is looking for a CMO Expert… Hoxton Farms (🏴) has a bunch of open roles.
💡 Cash & Carry Syndicate has written an interesting post on why fully-owned physical stores could be a promising strategic path for CPG / FMCG brands.
🍁 A new report from the Canadian Food Innovation Network (CFIN) on the Canadian FoodTech ecosystem shows that $2.9B has been invested in Canadian AgriFoodTech between 2014 and 2024. The compound annual growth rate in investments has been 8.4%, although e.g. Series A and B deal sizes are still 2x larger in the U.S. and the U.K. compared to Canada.
CFIN
Want to share some FoodTech news/project with other FoodTech Weekly subscribers? Hit reply.
🎲 Random Stuff
🍩 A baby born on Jan 22, 2025 at a Krispy Kreme parking lot in Alabama (which is now listed as the place of birth on the boy’s birth certificate) has been awarded a year’s supply of free donuts; the donut chain will also throw baby Dallas a birthday party every year until he’s an adult.
🦌 The annual stag-calling championship just took place in Dortmund, Germany. Hunters used weird instruments to imitate a male deer’s rival during mating season.
I love you.
Daniel
- - -
🎵 This issue was produced while listening to All This To Live For by Emmit Fenn
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