Now is the time to invest in foodtech, but why? As Covid continues to ravish the complete food supply chain its more imperative than ever to offer disruptive solutions to new challenges we face. Foodtech has always stood out as a powerful tool of value and strength as it provides new opportunities in the face of a crisis.
As almost every industry feels the affect of halted investment rounds and lack of funding, foodtech companies who are offering innovative solutions are finding themselves harnessing new investments. Heres just a few from this week:
Nextprotein
French Nextprotein that produces insect-based animal feed and fertiliser has secured €10.2 million this week to scale-up its production. They offer a range of products like protein powder for farmed fish as well as pigs and pets. The company will use its funding to power more research and development with a plan to scale production up to 100,000 tonnes per year by 2025.
Insect-protein has been garnering increasingly more support as the global demand for protein heats up and consumers now look for solutions with an added benefit of sustainability.
Agrocorp
Singapore-based Agrocorp aims to nourish a changing world and is one of the leading integrated agricultural commodity and food solution providers around the globe. They recently received a US$50 million sustainable borrowing base facility from Dutch development bank FMO and Rabobank to optimize food supply chains in developing markets. COVID19 has thrown a number of challenges at our global food supply chains, resulting in food production shortages and rising prices and companies offering efficient solutions to these challenges are receiving more investment than others.
Protera Bio
AI-powered startup Protera designs and develops smarter proteins for a wider range of sustainable solutions. The company announced it has successfully closed a $5.6mil series A funding round led by Sofinnova Partners the leading European life sciences venture capital.
Thanks to this new funding the Protera team will be able to drive the commercialisation of their protein ingredient portfolio as the demand for more alternative protein with higher taste and texture values spikes amid the crisis.
Algaia
French biomarine startup Algaia has secured $2.4M to improve its plant-based meat texture. The young company develops new ingredients using seaweed natural extracts and has enjoyed double-digit growth over the past year. During COVID plant-based products have experienced sales and demand growth as consumers look for products that offer added health benefits and are nicer to the planet.
Branded VegAlg, the company says that its proprietary ingredient line will improve the texture, shape and structure of plant-based meats.