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- FoodTech Weekly #236 by Daniel S. Ruben
FoodTech Weekly #236 by Daniel S. Ruben
News on FoodTech, food, and society
Daniel S. Ruben
March 07, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 11 minutes
In partnership with
#236
Hi there,
I hope your March is off to a good start.
This week's rundown:
💶 €10M grant for Solar Foods’ protein from air
💵 $10M for Nitricity’s organic fertilizer from air, water, renewable energy
💸 The $19 strawberry (it’d better have a good backstory, like Aviation Gin’s)
Let's go!
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💬 Conversations
Insect pests like Olive Fruit Fly, Navel Orangeworm, and Fall Armyworm cause tens of billions of dollars in damage to food crops every year. Farmers use massive amounts of harmful chemical pesticides to fight these insects. Agragene is using CRISPR-based gene editing to produce sterile male insects. The released sterile males then mate with wild females, effectively suppressing the insect population. Pretty cool.
To learn more, I spoke with Agragene’s CEO, Bryan Witherbee. Read the full convo here!
Bryan Witherbee / Agragene
💰 Funding
🇫🇮 Solar Foods has received a €10M ($10.8M) grant from Business Finland, as part of a funding allocation from the European Commission’s Important Projects of Common European Interest (IPCEI). The company produces a yellowish protein ingredient called Solein through feeding microbes elements from the air (3 min video on how it works).
🇺🇸 Nitricity has secured $10M from e.g. Elemental Impact and Trellis Climate to build a plant in California operational in 2026 that will produce organic nitrogen fertilizer from air, water, renewable energy — and recycled almond shells. The new fundraise includes a mix of equity and non-dilutive project financing.
🇺🇸 Avalo has scored $11M in Series A funding, and partnered with Coca-Cola Europacific Partners to develop climate-resilient sugarcane. Avalo’s AI-powered technology [because this is 2025 after all] identifies key genetic traits rapidly, which significantly shortens crop breeding timelines. The goal is to help cut fertilizer and water use in sugarcane cultivation. The Series A round was co-led by Germin8 Ventures and Alexandria Venture Investments.
🇵🇹 SEAentia has hauled in €16M ($17.2M) in funding from e.g. Indico Capital Partners’ Blue Fund to build a RAS (recirculating aquaculture system) farm which will grow high-quality Corvina, a type of white fish.
🇨🇦 Konscious Foods has bagged $5M from the Canadian government, provided through its PacifiCan Business Scale-up and Productivity program. The startup produces frozen, plant-based sushi meals made with Canadian-grown ingredients such as quinoa, tomatoes, and carrots.
Image: Konscious Foods
🇮🇱 Steakholder Foods has banked appr. $1.25M in new funding through a private placement agreement and an equity line of credit (ELOC) with Alumni Capital LP, alongside access to $8M more in funding. The startup develops e.g. 3D printed plant-based fish and eel.
🇯🇵 Cultivated meat startup IntegriCulture has announced a JPY 200M ($1.3M) non-dilutive loan, which will be used to ‘accelerate R&D for scaling.’
🎙️ Investment Climate: Daniel MacGowan von Holstein of Kynda on how to get funded in 2025
This week, Alex Shandrovsky met with Daniel MacGowan von Holstein, CEO and Co-Founder of Kynda. The startup transforms food industry waste into high-value mycoprotein, and recently raised a €3M round.
Top three findings from this conversation:
Investors Are More Comfortable When Risks Are Reduced. By removing regulatory risk (switching to a non-novel food strain) and showing corporate validation (testing bioreactors on factory floors), Kynda de-risked the investment and attracted more confident investors. "Early on, we asked VCs to take on multiple risks—product risk, market risk, technology risk, and regulatory risk. But once we switched our strain to a non-novel food strain, we eliminated regulatory risk, making investment much more attractive."
Corporate Partnerships Provide Investor Validation. Instead of vague Letters of Intent (LOIs), Kynda demonstrated real-world corporate adoption, allowing investors to call partners and hear positive feedback firsthand. "We placed a small bioreactor on a dairy company's factory floor, using their oat okara waste to produce mycoprotein. In just a day, it transformed into an edible product they could use. This hands-on demo was a huge ‘aha’ moment.”
B2B Success Comes From Solving a Financial Problem, Not Just a Sustainability One. While sustainability is a bonus, cost and efficiency drive corporate decisions. Kynda positioned its solution as cost-effective and scalable, making adoption easier. ”Sustainability alone doesn't convince corporates. We pitched it with better taste and better prices."
🧐 Noteworthy
📉 Global agrifoodtech funding reached $16B in 2024, a 4% decline from 2023, a new report from AgFunder shows. Investment actually increased in five countries: The U.S. (+14%), India (+215%), the Netherlands (+118%), Finland (+403%), and Japan (+76%). eGrocery was the top-funded category last year, accounting for almost 12% of total funding. The three markets receiving the most investment were the U.S. ($6.6B), China ($848M) and the U.K. ($616M).
🍌 U.K biotech startup Tropic is launching non-browning bananas now, and extended shelf-life bananas by year-end, developed using CRISPR gene editing.
🥬 Researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have developed gene-edited lettuce using CRISPR technology, where the β-carotene, zeaxanthin, and vitamin C contents have been significantly boosted. The aim of the more nutritious lettuce is to combat global micronutrient deficiencies (h/t The Spoon).
🐶 German pet food maker Marsapet has launched a dog kibble product which includes FeedKind protein, made by California scaleup Calysta. The company uses methane as a carbon and energy source for single-cell microbes, who are transformed into protein which can then be used as an ingredient in e.g. pet food and aquafeed.
🌍 News from the FoodTech Weekly community
👨🏻💻 Juicy Marbles (🇸🇮) is hiring a Sales Operations Specialist… OlsAro (🇸🇪) is recruiting an Operations Manager.
Want to share some FoodTech news/project with other FoodTech Weekly subscribers? Hit reply.
🎲 Random Stuff
⚖️ A British woman admitted to a local court that she wore wigs and disguises to take U.K. citizenship tests for 13 different women and men, for financial gain. The 24 question exam which tests knowledge of British history, value, and society must be passed to receive permanent residency or citizenship.
😋 Swedish people everywhere observed World Obesity Day on March 4 by gorging themselves with the traditional (and very delicious) almond paste-filled sweet roll Semla (which has about 400 calories), traditionally eaten on Fat Tuesday, which this year coincided with World Obesity Day.
🍓 Erewhon, the Californian retailer that has become the go-to-spot for the rich and the influencers, is selling single Japanese strawberries for $19 each (h/t Riccardo Astolfi). Meanwhile, a Premium monthly membership of FoodTech Weekly is still just $5…
I love you.
Daniel
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🎵 This issue was produced while listening to 2 Be Loved (I Am Ready) by Lizzo
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