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Hi there,
Not sure who asked for it, but Heinz and Smoothie King have launched a ketchup smoothie:
Tomato juice’s chaotic cousin
🍅 Tomato Smoothie: Yay or Nay?
This week's rundown:
💵 Vertical farming OG AeroFarms bags more cash; is profitable and will expand
☕️ Alt coffee startup Prefer in Singapore grounds some fresh capital; steams ahead
🐕 ‘Ozempic’ for dogs
Let's go!
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💰 Funding
🇺🇸 BioConsortia has secured $15M in fresh funding, led by existing investor Otter Capital. The company develops microbial solutions that boost crop yields, cut chemical fertilizer use, and improve plant resilience against e.g. droughts and pests.
🇦🇹 Plant-based seafood company Revo Foods has reeled in €1.6M ($1.8M) through a crowdfunding campaign, which will be used to scale production, boost marketing, and keep developing the company’s 3D food printing technology.
🇳🇴 Saga Robotics has harvested €9.5M ($11M) in funding from e.g. Praesidium Agri-FoodTech, Aker, Nysnø Climate Investments, Blystad, Hatteland, Melesio, Sanden and MP Pensjon. The startup develops autonomous robots that use UV-C light to target powdery mildew, a common fungal disease that affects e.g. strawberry plants.
🇺🇸 AeroFarms has raised equity financing from existing investors like Grosvenor, Ingka Investments, Cibus Capital, and ACEG, to help fund ‘pre-construction activities’ for its expansion to a second farm. The vertical farming pioneer declared bankruptcy in 2023, but raised new money and brought in a new CEO, which has succeeded in turning the company profitable for the last few quarters.
🇸🇬 Prefer has closed a $4.2M pre-Series A funding round co-led by At One Ventures and Chancery Hill Capital. The company develops alternatives to coffee and chocolate made from upcycled, fermented raw materials, and has signed commercial deals with Ajinomoto and The Coffee Ferm.
Prefer
🎙️ Investment Climate: Ankit Bagaria of Loopworm on how to get funded in 2025
This week, Alex Shandrovsky met with Ankit Alok Bagaria, co-founder and CEO of Loopworm, a Bangalore-based biotech startup using insect-based systems to produce high-value proteins for nutrition, diagnostics, and biopharma. Ankit shares how Loopworm raised a $3.25M pre-Series A round led by WaterBridge Ventures and Japan’s Enrission India Capital, and how they built investor conviction around a new recombinant protein platform—while continuing to scale a profitable animal nutrition business.
Top three findings from this conversation:
Existing Investors Can Be the Best Lead Investors. Loopworm’s pre-Series A was led by WaterBridge Ventures, an existing investor who doubled down because of strong business performance and a promising new vertical. “Obviously, they were much more aware in terms of the progress at Loopworm in terms of what we were trying to achieve, the major breakthrough that we got with our recombinant protein platform. That is where I think that confidence came in, where they straightaway gave us a commitment.”
Cold Outreach Can Land Strategic Investors. The Japanese investor was sourced via a short LinkedIn message emphasizing traction and capital already committed. “I saw news saying their fund was actively looking at investments in India… so I reached out on LinkedIn. Japan can be a great market for us, since we work with silkworms.”
Data Room & Preparedness Shortened Due Diligence. Ankit prepared questions, hyperlinked Q&A in Google Drive, plus factory and process videos, and accelerated the close. “From our last seed round of investment, what I learned was that it's better to be prepared with all the data rooms, FAQs, etc. So I can essentially predict the hundred questions that an investor would ask me and create supporting documents for them. From a financial due diligence and a legal due diligence perspective, even from an ESG due diligence perspective, we had already created data rooms. We even prepared five videos.”
🧐 Noteworthy
🐕🦺 Omni Pet has launched ‘LeanPaws’, a weight loss supplement for dogs. Some 50% of dogs are overweight; in Omni’s clinical trials 77% of overweight dogs lost weight.
🤖 In Shenzhen, China, 41 autonomous delivery robots have been taught to e.g. board trains and ride elevators; analysts believe the robots could help decrease traffic congestion in urban areas.
🧬 Gene editing company Pairwise has licensed its platform to non-profit ag research organization CIMMYT to help accelerate crop development for smallholder farmers. Pairwise has also licensed its platform to Mars, which aims to use it to future-proof cacao crops and production from challenges like climate change and plant disease.
🌏 How bread vs rice molded history — super fascinating (h/t Sonalie Figueiras)
🥗 A study of 329 diners found that the exact same meal was rated as significantly healthier when served in a bowl rather than on a plate — demonstrating a “health halo” effect of bowls. Researchers suggest this may be because healthier foods, such as soups and salads, are typically served in bowls, creating an unconscious association in people (h/t Sophie Attwood, PhD).
🌍 News from the FoodTech Weekly community
👨🏻💻 Petgood (🇸🇪) is looking for a Social Media Manager, and a Retail Sales Manager… Sonic Flora (🇸🇪) is recruiting a Project Coordinator.
Want to share some FoodTech news/project with other FoodTech Weekly subscribers? Hit reply.
🎲 Random Stuff
☀️ Infographic: How many more acres are needed and used for solar vs corn for ethanol, in the U.S?
🌼 “The Flower Designer: A plant biologist’s quest to design and create 1,000 unique flowers, mostly in his spare time.” Wonderful read from Asimov.
🤏 Some restaurants are shrinking meals to miniature sizes to cater to the Ozempic generation.
I love you.
Daniel
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🎵 This issue was produced while listening to Fall At Your Feet by Boy & Bear.
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