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Hi there,
For some reason, this was the week of robotics funding. And that’s on top of the news that (AgTech company) Bonsai Robotics has acquired industry peer farm-ng for an undisclosed sum.
This week's rundown:
🚜 Big funding rounds for ag/food robotic companies TRIC, 4Ag, Aigen, and Remora.
✅ Mission Barns scores regulatory approval for cultivated pork fat.
🏦 The tropical island making 1/3 of its gov’t revenue from a top-level web domain
Let's go!
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💰 Funding
🇺🇸 TRIC Robotics has harvested a $5.5M Seed round led by Version One Ventures. The startup makes automated agriculture robots that e.g. use UV light to treat strawberry fields for fungi, without the need for chemical inputs. The robots also has a vacuum that can remove insects without pesticides.
🇨🇦 4Ag Robotics has bagged a CAD $40M (US $29M) Series B round led by Astanor and Cibus Capital. The company’s robots monitor, pick, trim, and pack mushrooms 24/7, boosting yield and quality while helping to cut labor costs in an otherwise labor-intensive industry.
🇳🇴 Remora Robotics has reeled in €13.7M ($15.6M) in funding, led by Hatch Blue. The company has developed a fully autonomous submarine robot that can clean and inspect fish farming pens. The system can also use AI (because this is 2025, remember) to e.g. monitor fish welfare.
🇳🇱 Farm in a Box, which develops land-based, modular, plug-and-play recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS) has secured €350K ($400K) from the North Holland Innovation Fund.
🇺🇸 Aigen has raised $10M in a round led by NEA. The company builds lightweight, solar-powered autonomous ag robots that use AI to distinguish between weeds and crops, and then use precision tools to remove the weeds without the use of herbicides.
Image: Aigen
🎙️ Investment Climate: Eleonora Cavani of Alba Health on how to get funded in 2025
This week, Alex Shandrovsky met with Eleonora Cavani, founder and CEO of Alba Health, a Sweden-based startup on a mission to prevent chronic disease by improving childhood gut health. The company combines microbiome testing, nutritional coaching, and parent education to help families build long-term health foundations. Alba recently raised €5M, including a €2.5M round led by Unconventional Ventures.
Top three findings from this conversation:
From Cold Start to 600 Conversations. Nora’s pre-seed journey involved reaching out cold to 250 investors and speaking with 600 people in her first year—building trust one connection at a time. "The first year, I really spent it meeting so many people. I spoke to 600 people and I spoke to anybody, not only investors, anybody that had something around this topic, anybody that was interested in the topic, anyone that could help, anyone that resonated, that somehow liked what we're doing.”
How to Win Intros: Be Someone Worth Introducing. Rather than asking directly, Eleonora focused on being authentic, valuable, and compelling—so others wanted to introduce her. "I saw many people giving me introductions and inviting me to more and more things over time. And I think that's what led to that one introduction, but it led to many other introductions as well.”
Valuation: Let the Market Decide. Rather than anchoring the conversation, Eleonora lets investor demand determine valuation—betting on interest over control. “ I never decide that [valuation]. I want to create extreme interest, I want to make sure that many investors are interested in getting in, see the value, and understand what we're doing. And then I think the valuation is just a consequence. And they will come up with it, and they will figure out something.”
🧐 Noteworthy
🥓 Mission Barns of San Francisco, which produces cultivated pork fat, has received USDA approval to sell its ingredient formulated into other plant-based foods.
🥀 London-based vertical farming company Vertical Future has been put up for sale, after posting a £10M ($13M) loss on a £700K revenue. The company had raised £37M ($48M) since its founding in 2016.
🪦 FlyBlast of Belgium, which genetically engineers Black Soldier Flies to produce insulin and other high-value proteins, is shutting down due to a lack of funding.
📈 No, growing more food does not mean we always need more and more inputs. Great read from Hannah Ritchie of Our World in Data / University of Oxford.
🥔 Molecular farming company PoLoPo is introducing potato chips with up to 3x more protein, with no compromise on taste or texture. The company expects USDA clearance by the end of 2025.
Image: PoLoPo / Tal Shahar
🌍 News from the FoodTech Weekly community
👨🏻💻 Ljusgårda (🇸🇪) is hiring a Senior Plant Scientist… Farmless (🇳🇱) is recruiting for Farm Application… Planet A Foods (🇩🇪) has a bunch of open roles.
Want to share some FoodTech news/project with other FoodTech Weekly subscribers? Hit reply.
🎲 Random Stuff
🏝 Thanks to the AI boom, the Caribbean island of Anguilla is earning $100M+ a year (accounting for 1/3 of total government income) from its country-code domain, .ai.
🌡 Applying yoghurt to the outside of windows could lower a house’s temperature by up to 3.5C, a U.K. researcher has found.
🐒 How animals are the original wellness influencers.
🫎 A small plane recently crashed in Alaska because it was overloaded with moose meat, and it also had antlers attached to the wing.
👮♂️ People are making fun of the Toronto Transit Commission’s renamed fare inspectors — the Provincial Offences Officers, a.k.a. POO.
🏄♂️ Cute pics from the U.K. Dog Surfing Championship which was just held in Dorset (and congrats to the winning couple, Margo and her owner Carl Barnes).
🥚 A new study funded by the Egg Nutrition Center concludes that (surprise, surprise!) eating two eggs a day reduces LDL-cholesterol, a risk factor for heart disease. For some reason, it reminds me of this old gem:
I love you.
Daniel
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🎵 This issue was produced while listening to One Night in Bangkok by Murray Head.🤳 Follow me on LinkedIn and X.
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