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- FoodTech Weekly #233 by Daniel S. Ruben
FoodTech Weekly #233 by Daniel S. Ruben
News on FoodTech, food, and society
Daniel S. Ruben
February 14, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 17 minutes
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#233
Hi there,
For several years I’ve worked at the intersection of startups and investors; as an advisor or accelerator mentor to countless startups, as an active angel investor (40+ startups), as an operating expert to several VC funds, as a Board member, and as Partner of Solvable Syndicate.
I’ve made some learnings and observations along the way that I will share more actively going forward via the Solvable platform (newsletter + website) on topics related to startups, VC, angel investment, and industry trends, that I hope can be both fun and helpful to founders and investors alike. Some of the first pieces include:
Feedback welcome. And please sign up for future content via the Solvable newsletter!
Solvable
An update on ads: A month ago I kicked off ads for FoodTech Weekly, and I thought I’d share how they’ve performed. In January, ads income just about covered the $70 monthly cost for Beehiiv. I mean, I can’t retire quite yet based on that income, but I’m still happy about it. Every click on this week’s Notion ad yields about $3, for example. So I’ll continue with ads for now. If you find them too annoying, consider upgrading to a Premium subscription, and you’ll get rid of ads.
This week's rundown:
💰 Vertical farming scaleup 80 Acres Farms bags $115M in fresh funding
💶 Agteria secures €6M for molecule that cut cattle methane emissions
🐒 Curious monkey shuts down entire electric grid of Sri Lanka
Let's go!
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💬 Conversation with Jevan Nagarajah of Better Dairy
We’ve all heard about having your cake and eating it too…what if you could savor the joys of dairy without its environmental or ethical downsides? This is what Jevan Nagarajah and his team at Better Dairy are trying to enable: “We want to transcend beyond the limitations of animal milk, and tap into a new era for milk and dairy. It’s a paradigm shift.” And they’re using precision fermentation to achieve this. To learn more, I recently sat down with Jevan. Read the full conversation here.
Jevan / Better Dairy
💰 Funding
🇺🇸 Indoor vertical farming scaleup 80 Acres Farms has announced $115M in fresh funding, bringing its total funding to $370M+. Investors included e.g. General Atlantic and Siemens Financial Services. The company has also acquired Israeli biotech company Plantae Biosciences, allowing it to focus more on improving plant genetics for indoor agriculture.
🇸🇪 Agteria Biotech has bagged €6M ($6.25M) in Seed funding, led by investors Industrifonden and AgriZeronz and joined by e.g. Norrsken Launcher and Mudcake. The company has developed a patent-pending molecule which reduces methane emissions from cattle.
🇪🇸 KOA Biotech has closed a €2M ($2.1M) round backed by Swanlaab Innvierte Agrifood-Tech, Fund-F, and Faber. The Barcelona startup develops e.g. a biosensor system for aquaculture that detects waterborne infections in fish farms before they spread, which reduces mortality rates and antibiotic use, and saves farmers’ money.
🇳🇱 Collie has banked €3.5M ($3.6M) in Seed funding led by Freigeist Capital. The startup provides a digital livestock management system which combines a specialized collar and an accompanying app, allowing farmers to create virtual fences and guide their herds remotely through beeps and vibrations, replacing the need for physical fencing.
🏴 Plant-based pet food startup Omni secured £75K ($93K) in funding from two investors on Dragon’s Den UK this week. The business, which was valued at £3M ($3.7M), generated over £2.5M ($3.1M) in sales in 2022 and 2023 (full disclosure: Solvable Syndicate, where I’m a Partner, invested in Omni last year).
Shiv Sivakumar and Guy Sandelowsky / Omni. Image: BBC
🇺🇸 Edacious, which develops a rapid testing and data insights platform to measure and map nutrient density in whole foods, has netted a $8.1M Seed round led by Patagonia’s venture fund Tin Shed Ventures.
🇺🇸 Heritable Agriculture, which spun out of Google’s ‘moonshot factory’ X, has raised a Seed round (sum undisclosed), from investors like FTW Ventures, Mythos Ventures, SVG Ventures, and Google. The data/AI-driven startup uses machine learning to optimize crop growth and reduce agriculture’s environmental impact (h/t ClimateHack).
🇨🇭BRU, which has developed a machine that makes tea making as convenient as an espresso machine, has poured a nice cuppa of a CHF 2M ($2.2M) round backed by a ‘strategic partner’. The startup has sold 10K+ machines since launching in 2023, and has reached a €2M ($2.1M) revenue milestone.
🏴 AgTech startup CroBio has harvested €850K in new funding from Defra’s Farming Innovation Programme and Innovate UK. The company develops a low-cost living soil amendment that farmers apply in liquid form once per growing season. It absorbs atmospheric CO2 and boosts plant growth, while building a nutrient-rich soil.
🇸🇪 Häppi, which develops functional prebiotic sodas, has gulped down SEK 8M ($700K) in fresh funding from e.g Graphit Neotaste (the F&B investment arm of the broader Porsche-Piëch family) as well as a number of angel investors.
Image: Häppi
🎙️ Investment Climate: Andy Clayton of Fermtech shares how to get funded in 2025
This week, Alex Shandrovsky met with Andy Clayton, Founder and CEO Fermtech, a company turning brewing industry waste into valuable food ingredients. Andy shares his journey of raising funds through a mix of traditional investors and crowdfunding, using Crowdcube to complete their round with £325k ($400K). Fermtech’s goal is to revolutionize food sustainability by creating delicious, cocoa-enhancing ingredients that save 98% CO2 emissions versus cocoa.
Top three findings from this conversation:
Crowdfunding Complements Traditional Investment. Crowdfunding helped finalize the investment round rather than starting from scratch. "The function that crowdfunding played for us was that it finished off a round. You can't just start from zero and expect to close a round on crowdfunding only. You have to come to the platform having already filled a large amount of your raise."
Crowdfunding Encourages Existing Networks to Invest More. "Although we managed to just about close our round, in truth, a lot of it didn’t actually come from the crowdfunding platform. What the platform forced us to do was really shake the tree of the networks that we already had."
Crowdfunding Platforms Rely on Psychology and Momentum. “The entire crowdfunding platform is built around the algorithms of human psychology as expressed through the crowd. You start your crowdfunding raise already close to fully funded.”
🧐 Noteworthy
🧬 An AI-model called ESM3 created a new protein that simulates 500M years of biological evolution (h/t NatureTechMemos).
🥗 How the meaty Danes embraced a plant-based diet plan.
💡 Last week I mentioned an article on electro-agriculture, bypassing photosynthesis and allowing plants to grow in complete darkness. Maya Benami, PhD did an excellent job breaking down electro-agriculture (how it works, what it could enable, remaining challenges, and what’s next) in this LinkedIn post.
🦿 Why farmers don’t use exoskeletons.
📌 FoodHack has built a fantastic database of 320+ startups reshaping the future of food and health. Here’s the breakthroughs in the space that 12 investors hope to see.
FoodHack database
🌍 News from the FoodTech Weekly community
👨🏻💻 Hyfé (🇺🇸) is hiring a Senior Scientist.
⛓️💥 Sarah Nolet of Tenacious Ventures has written a wonderful piece, 'Is AgTech broken for VC — or are we asking the wrong question?’
🌟 RisingFoodStars is EIT Food’s scaleup programme, designed to support high-potential agrifood tech businesses as they navigate the challenges of scaling. Members gain access to tailored mentoring, investment opportunities, industry connections, and visibility at leading agrifood events. Applications for the 2025 cohort close on Feb 21, 2025. Find out more and apply here.
🗒️ GFI is conducting a survey to understand what works and what doesn’t when it comes to developing and using cell lines from fish and shellfish. If you’re working with cell lines or long-term primary cultures for cultivated seafood and would like to help, please fill out this survey by Mar 14! More information here.
🧑💻 Deck Doctors is officially launching in Europe! Together with FoodLabs they are hosting a free online event for founders on Thursday, Feb 27, 2025, from 5-6 PM CET. It’s about time European tech companies make themself shine the same way as their US counterparts. They believe the pitch deck is a great place to start. Founders will learn how the art of storytelling plus design is the best way to showcase a transformative venture and optimize the fundraising process.
🏆 FoodHack just launched the 2025 edition of the FoodTech World Cup. Last year Italy's Foreverland Food came out on top, closely followed by Ghana’s Legendary Foods and Argentina’s Nat4Bio. This year’s World Cup will focus on startups working on nutrition and health solutions with regional demo days in front of Givaudan and Nestle executives as well as top investors. The grand final will take place in Lausanne, Switzerland, as a side event of HackSummit.
Want to share some FoodTech news/project with other FoodTech Weekly subscribers? Hit reply.
🎲 Random Stuff
🦫 Czech authorities spent 7 years preparing for a water restoration project in Brdy Landscape Park, estimated at a cost of 30M Czech crowns ($1.2M) — but then a local beaver population just decided to build dams right where construction was set to begin, finishing the work in two days and saving the government $1.2M. So far, the beavers have built 4 dams in the area and are working on more.
🥚 Due to the egg supply crisis in the U.S., some restaurants like Waffle House have started adding a 50-cent per egg surcharge to customers’ orders.
⚡ A nationwide power outage hit Sri Lanka last Sunday, leaving 22M without electricity, after a monkey came in contact with a grid transformer.
I love you.
Daniel
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🎵 This issue was produced while listening to APT. by ROSÉ and Bruno Mars.
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