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Hi there,
I’m a big believer in community and ecosystems. That it takes a village to raise a child. And one such super important community is Hack. It’s the folks behind FoodHack, ClimateHack, HackSummit in Lausanne and New York, HackTrends, and so much more.
They create an insane amount of value for the global climate/food community, much of it for free. Now is your chance to give back.
Hack is running a Global Impact Survey. Fill it out to help shape their work. You’ll get 1 month free access to HackTrends plus 10% off HackSummit NY, and you’re also entered to win a free HackSummit ticket or a HackCap.
👉 Take the survey now (it’s pretty quick!). When done, you’ll get a thank you screen — email me an unblurred screenshot of that, and I’ll pick a reader who’ll receive a free copy of Amanda Little’s book The Fate of Food.
This week's rundown:
💵 Big funding rounds for mycoprotein for food and animal feed.
🤝 Major merger in the indoor vertical farming industry.
🤷♂️ Ice-cream that doesn’t melt, $2,000 pizzas, and other weird random stuff.
Let's go!
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💰 Funding
🇺🇸 The Better Meat Co has closed a $31M Series A round, co-led by Future Ventures and Resilience Reserve. The startup produces Rhiza, a mycoprotein ingredient rich in protein and all essential amino acids, used in blended meat products and plant-based alternatives.
🇸🇪 Seaqure labs, which develops sustainable mycoprotein-based fish feed, has scored SEK 5M ($500K) in pre-seed funding, backed by Chalmers Ventures, Almi Invest Västsverige, Propel Capital, SLU Holding, and West Coast Business Angels, as well as private investors. I interviewed Seaqure labs’ CEO/Co-Founder for FTW earlier this year.
🇮🇱 Phytolon, which produces natural food colorings using precision fermentation, has banked bridge funding from Colorcon Ventures as well as existing investors including e.g. EIT Food and Gingko Bioworks.
🇬🇧 Azotic Technologies has been awarded £500K from the U.K Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA). The startup develops a technology that applies microbes to crops to ‘reprogram’ them, making them more resistant against e.g. pests, diseases, and environmental stressors such as drought and heat.
🇨🇦/🇺🇸 BinSentry has raised a $50M Series C round led by Lead Edge Capital. The company uses in-bin sensors and machine imaging tech to help farmers monitor feed levels in real time, which helps prevent spoilage from e.g. contamination or pests, and save manual labor.
BinSentry
🎙️ Investment Climate: Jake Berber of Prefer on how to get funded in 2025
This week, Alex Shandrovsky met with Jake Berber, CEO and Co-Founder of Prefer, who just closed an oversubscribed $4.2M pre-A round led by At One Ventures and Chancery Hill Capital to future-proof climate-threatened crops starting with coffee and cocoa.
The full conversation can be found on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Top three findings from this conversation:
Funnel Management: Brutal Conversion Rates. Out of 500+ reach outs, only three checks closed (~1.5%). Jake emphasizes grit and volume. "We had 200 venture capital funds, CVCs, EVCS, government agencies, and family offices in our CRM that we had spoken with. So we had over 200 different entities that we spoke with that were interested in raising money and took a call with us. "
Warm Intros Are Non-Negotiable. Fundraising = sales. Investors judge founders by their ability to secure warm introductions. " I think that investors want to see that you are a good enough salesperson to get a warm introduction to them. I bring it back to sales because what we've learned in our industry, being a B2B food tech company, is that a warm introduction to a customer is infinitely more effective than a cold reach out to a customer. And so good investors know that if you're able to get a warm introduction to me, the investor, that means that you can get a warm introduction to the customer.”
Data Room Strategy: Radical Transparency. Jake used a non-NDA data room with nearly everything except customer names and IP details to accelerate diligence. "The only difference in our NDA data room versus non-NDA data room is customer names and IP information. We keep our forward-looking financial model in there. We keep in MOU amounts, but we redact all contracts of names or anything. So you can still see the structure of the MOUs, that there's a signature on there that they're legitimate from legitimate corporations who have these sorts of formal documents.”
🧐 Noteworthy
🐮 Ambient Carbon says it managed to achieve up to 90% methane removal, plus ammonia and odour reduction, when deploying its technology in a large-scale Danish dairy barn trial.
🖇 Indoor vertical farming companies 80 Acres Farms and Soli Organic are merging, forming a $200M annual revenue company serving 17K retail locations with crops ranging from salad blends and salad kits to herbs, tomatoes, and microgreens.
📈 ICYMI over the summer, Solar Foods announced it has signed an LOI to commercialize up to 1,650 tons of its Solein protein, generating net sales of €80-€200M. The company feeds CO2, hydrogen, and oxygen to microbes that are later dried into a flavorless powder with 78% protein, 6% fat, and 10% dietary fiber.
💡 Eshan Samaranayake has written a wonderful, insightful piece on ag biologicals — crop inputs derived from living organisms, designed to improve plant health or control pests.
🚜 Combine harvesters and tractors created a productivity boom in the U.S., contributing to boosting the average farm size from 150 acres in the 1990s to almost 500 acres in the 2020s, and rapidly decreasing the number of farmers and people employed in agriculture.
🌍 News from the FoodTech Weekly community
👨🏻💻 The Green Dairy (🇸🇪) is hiring a Senior Project Manager.
💼 Ex-McKinsey Private Equity Practice consultant looking to break into the PE/VC x consumer space in Europe. Been in a Strategy and Value Creation role at a European Private Equity firm, with past experience as a CPG founder and in post-merger integrations in consumer tech and retail. Professional exposure to the full deal cycle and an active angel investor in the space. Get in touch here.
🚀 Pitch Lounge & Foodpreneurs Collective bring you two pitch opportunities: FoodTech Pitch Lounge (LATAM Edition) on Aug 27 (online) and Food Security SummitX, Dubai 2025 on Sep 17-18 (in-person), with startup pitches & awards on global food security. Learn more & register via the Pitch Lounge website events page..
🎓 FoodTech Experts is live — a new global platform giving companies fast, affordable access to 2,500+ vetted foodtech specialists across 60+ countries. Built by Bright Green Partners on five years of consulting work, the network spans all foodtech niche areas from fermentation to packaging, regulation, upcycling and more. The platform is open to supporting all companies — and is also welcoming new experts to join. Also see this Vegconomist article.
🍄🟫 The Future is Fungi Award is back — ready to back the next wave of fungi innovators. The awardäs mission is to catalyze groundbreaking fungal innovations that address some of humanity’s biggest environmental challenges — and to support the startups and science entrepreneurs pioneering these solutions. Startups can get a €250K SAFE investment, visibility, and access to a global expert network. Scientists get a 3-month venture builder program to help turn research into startups, plus financial support. Startup applications are open now, science entrepreneur applications open in December.
Want to share some FoodTech news/project with other FoodTech Weekly subscribers? Hit reply.
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🎲 Random Stuff
🍦 Ice-cream that doesn’t melt.
🤔 Watching strawberry picking on TikTok as entertainment.
🤘The annual Air Guitar World Championship is happening right now in Oulu, Finland. Contestants from 13 countries compete to see who can rock the best air guitar solo. Here’s last year’s aftermovie:
👏 Kenya has successfully eliminated human African trypanosomiasis, a.k.a. sleeping sickness, the WHO says.
⛪ A 113-year old, 672 ton wooden church was just moved 3 miles (5km) east, as part of a multidecade long effort to relocate the entire Swedish arctic city of Kiruna, which has been, well, undermined (as it sits on the world’s largest underground iron ore mine).
🧝♂️ Biodynamic farming is more witchy than scientific, Offspring writes.
💸 $2,000 pizzas — how the super-rich eat, according to private chefs.
I love you.
Daniel
Ps. Don’t forget to fill out the Hack survey. It’s quick.
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🎵 This issue was produced while listening to I Forgive That Man by Let Babylon Burn.🤳 Follow me on LinkedIn and X.
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