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- FoodTech Weekly #235 by Daniel S. Ruben
FoodTech Weekly #235 by Daniel S. Ruben
News on FoodTech, food, and society
Daniel S. Ruben
February 28, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 13 minutes
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#235
Hi there,
Thanks to all of you who’ve already signed up for Solvable’s newsletter (that I started recently), which features tips for startup founders, insights on angel investment, investor profiles, industry trends — and of course some FoodTech/AgTech 😉 If you enjoy these topics, please subscribe.
This week's rundown:
💰 Vivici bags $34M for high-value precision-fermented dairy proteins
🍔 Actual Veggies lands $7M for whole food ingredient burgers
🇪🇺 New EU strategy envisions full climate neutrality for food/ag sector by 2050
Let's go!
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💰 Funding
🇳🇱 Vivici, a startup formed by Fonterra and DSM-Firmenich to produce dairy proteins via precision fermentation, has closed a €32.5M ($34M) Series A round led by Invest-NL and APG. The startup is producing the whey protein beta-lactoglobulin and plans to launch production of bovine lactoferrin, a higher-value dairy protein, later this year.
🇨🇵 Spore.Bio, which develops an AI-powered biotechnology that can detect bacteria in food, drugs, and cosmetics within minutes, has raised a $23M Series A round led by Singular and joined by e.g. Point 72 Ventures, Station F, LocalGlobe, Famille C, and No Label Ventures.
🇮🇹 Arsenale Bioyards, which builds an end-to-end platform integrating advanced hardware, AI-driven software, and precision fermentation the company says can cut time and cost for biomanufacturing by up to 90%, has secured €9.5M ($10M) in funding. Planet A and ByFounders led the round which was also joined by e.g. Plug N Play and Grey Silo Ventures.
🇯🇵 Kinish has scored $800K in Seed funding to advance its molecular farming technology. The company has developed a proprietary rice plant that produces casein (h/t ClimateHack).
🇺🇸 Actual Veggies has bagged $7M in Series A funding, led by Relentless Consumer Partners and backed by e.g. New Fare Partners. The startup caters to consumers that are looking for vegetables, beans, and other whole food ingredients for their burgers, rather than meat analogs made from extruded proteins. The startup forecasts $20M in sales for 2025, and says it’s close to being profitable.
Image: Actual Veggies
🇲🇽 Kigüi has banked a $500K funding round led by The Yield Lab. The company leverages AI to improve inventory management in the retail sector (e.g. identifying near-expiry products), which helps cut food waste.
🇳🇱 Five Dutch entrepreneurs just won a €100K ($104K) cash prize each in DOEN Foundation’s Fair Future Challenge, including plant-based icecream startup Goodoo and plant-based fish startup Monkeys By The Sea (whose founder I interviewed for FTW back in August).
🏴 uFraction8 has scooped up £3.4M ($4.3M) in funding led by Foresight Group and joined by Old College Capital, Scottish Enterprise, Alwyn Capital, and Thia Ventures, plus a grant from the the Polish Agency for Enterprise Development (uFraction8 has a fully-owned subsidiary in Poland). The company has developed microfiltration technology that could enhance the affordability and scalability of bioprocessing when producing food, feed, and bio-based products.
🎙️ Investment Climate: Ines Sánchez-Castillo Velge of Beans on how to get funded in 2025
This week, Alex Shandrovsky met with Ines Sánchez-Castillo Velge, Co-Founder of Beans. The startup tackles food waste by buying unsold inventory from FMCG giants like Nestlé and Unilever and reselling it at deep discounts—helping consumers save up to 50% on groceries while turning waste into profit. Beans recently raised €1.4M with Waterlemon Ventures as lead investor.
Top three findings from this conversation:
Venture Studios Can De-Risk First-Time Founders. Beans emerged from the FoodTech Founders venture studio, which provided funding, expertise, and operational support, making fundraising and execution easier despite the founders being first-timers. ‘We're incredibly grateful that we founded this with them because their experience made us not first time founders. My co-founder and I are first time founders, but the fact that we had them meant that we weren't regarded as first-time founders, and that in our execution was massive.’
Startup Fundraising is a Numbers Game. Persistence is key in fundraising. It took 179 rejections before Beans secured investment, proving that resilience and conviction are crucial for success. ‘We spoke to about 180 VCs until we got our first yes. It's extremely discouraging when you have 179 funds that tell you what you're building is not worthwhile or maybe they don't say it in those terms. So try keeping on and hustling to get that traction.’
Customer Trust is Built Through Transparency & Engagement. Direct communication, social proof (Trustpilot reviews), and a referral program helped overcome consumer skepticism about discounted groceries. ‘ We wanted to be so extremely customer centric. For the first eight months, I had my personal cell phone on the website, so customers could call me directly.’
🧐 Noteworthy
🪦 U.S. vegan pet food startup Wild Earth has filed for bankruptcy. The company, which has raised about $50M over the years, will be taken over by its largest creditor Espresso Capital, and the startup might be sold as a going concern.
🇪🇺 The European Commission has published its strategic vision for the Union’s ag and food sector, aiming for e.g. a 30% reduction in food waste per capita by 2030 and full climate neutrality by 2050. The vision also encourages food chain stakeholders to adopt sustainable practices such as regenerative agriculture.
🌱Speaking about regen ag, ‘everyone loves regenerative agriculture — but noone agrees on what it is.’ Helpful article on Ambrook.
🌧️ As droughts are getting worse, is fog-farming a fix?
🇮🇱 Startup Nation Central has released a helpful Agriculture and FoodTech Landscape Map of 150+ Israeli AgTech/FoodTech startups.
🇯🇵 U.S. indoor vertical farming company Square Roots has announced Square Roots Japan, which will license and build upon the modular indoor farming platform developed by the mother company in the U.S. to help Japanese farmers produce specialty crops.
⚰️ French insect protein scaleup Ÿnsect, which had raised $600M to date, has filed for insolvency.
📉 At the pre-seed and seed stage, FoodTech deal counts declined 46% in 2024 compared to 2023, new data from PitchBook shows. In Q4 2024, FoodTech VCs invested $2.8B across 200 FoodTech deals, which was a record low deal count.
🌍 News from the FoodTech Weekly community
👨🏻💻 Improvin’ (🇸🇪) is seeking a Senior Software Engineer… Better Nature (🇬🇧) is hiring a Head of Sales.
🏆 The FoodTech World Cup welcomes startups to apply; pitch in front of Givaudan, Nestle Research + Development Lausanne as well as top tier VCs.
🌏 Better Bite VC has officially launched its Asia Climate Hub: a free database with over 1,000+ climate tech startups and investors dedicated to bridging the climate tech funding gap in the Asia-Pacific region.
Want to share some FoodTech news/project with other FoodTech Weekly subscribers? Hit reply.
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🎲 Random Stuff
📣 Food shaped candles in the form of e.g. donuts, avocados, and croissants is the trend that refuses to go away.
Melted cheese? Nope, melted wax
I love you.
Daniel
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🎵 This issue was produced while listening to Paper Planes by M.I.A.
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