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Hi there,
I’m going to The Drop next week. It’s a special event. Each attendee is individually approved, there are no panels, no pay-to-play event sponsors, no networking app — just tons of serendipitous networking and 100 attendee-organized ripples (basically roundtable conversations — I’m co-hosting one on solving nitrous oxide emissions from fertilizers), all masterfully curated by Hampus Jakobsson and the Pale Blue Dot team.
If you’ll be there, let’s meet.
This week's rundown:
🇮🇸🇩🇰 🇸🇪🇫🇮 Big week in funding for Scandinavian/Nordic FoodTech and AgTech
🤑 Messium secures funding for tech that help cut nitrogen fertilizer use
🐰 Why Florida is deploying hundreds of $4,000 plush toy rabbits in nature
Let's go!
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💰 Funding
🇮🇸 ORF Genetics has closed a €5M ($5.9M) round to help scale up its production of specialized proteins for the cultivated meat industry. The company produces these growth factors using bioengineered barley; the growth factors are then used in products from companies like Australia’s Vow, whose cultivated meat products are sold on the market.
🇩🇰 Decameal has reeled in a total of DKK 12.7M ($2M) in new financing, in a mix of equity, match loan, and grants from e.g. EIFO and GUDP (Grønt Udviklings- & Demonstrationsprogram). The company turns invasive shore crabs into high-value ingredients for aquafeed.
🇸🇪 SMAQO has raised an undisclosed sum in funding, led by Singapore-based Good Startup (Good Protein Fund) and joined by ITIL Partners and Nuora Capital. The startup aims to bring mycoprotein-based hybrid products to supermarket shelves in the coming months.
🇫🇮 Finnish Food Factory, a contract manufacturer of plant-based dairy products, has announced €10M ($11.7M) in scale-up funding from Taaleri Bioindustry’s Fund I.
🇫🇮 Perfat Technologies has bagged €2.5M in Series A funding to scale its fat alternative which transforms liquid vegetable oils into solid, functional fats. Investors in the round included. Nordic Science Investments, the University of Helsinki, NewTree Impact, Beyond Impact, and Big Idea Ventures. Perfat’s ingredient helps replace traditional fats like butter, palm oil, and coconut oil, and has 80% less fat, up to 30% fewer calories, and added fibre.
Perfat
🇺🇸 Nitricity has harvested a $50M Series B led by World Fund and Khosla Ventures, and backed by e.g. Chipotle’s Cultivate Next venture fund. The startup produces organic nitrogen fertilizer from air, water, renewable energy — and upcycled almond shells. The company’s new California production plant becomes operational in Q1, 2026, and will produce at full capacity — 8,500 tons per year — a few months later.
🇬🇧 Messium has scored a £3.3M ($4.5M) Seed round co-led by UK Innovation & Science Seed Fund (UKI2S), managed by Future Planet Capital and Expansion Aerospace Ventures, and joined by other investors such as Mudcake and Clear Current Capital. The startup uses hyperspectral satellites and AI-driven crop growth models to help provide farmers insights around how to cut nitrogen fertilizer use without compromising yields.
🇩🇪 Pacifico Biolabs, which develops meat alternatives using mycelium fermentation, has received €680K in public funding.
🇪🇸 Vanetta Food, which makes high-protein dishes using plant-based proteins, has nabbed an undisclosed sum of funding from BeFuture Invest.
🇬🇧 Xampla, a University of Cambridge spinout, has banked $14M in funding to scale up the development and commercialization of its plant-based alternative to single-use plastic. The funding round was led by Emerald Technology Ventures, BGF, and Matterwave Ventures.
Xampla
🎙️ Investment Climate: Dylan McDonnell of Foodini on how to get funded in 2025
This week, Alex Shandrovsky met with Dylan McDonnell, CEO and Co-Founder of Foodini, a dietary-intelligence platform that powers truly personalized menus by mapping recipes down to ingredient level so diners know exactly what they can (and can’t) eat when dining out. Fresh off a $1.8M raise led by Untapped Ventures and joined by Sister Ventures, MVP Capital Partners, and Solvable Syndicate, Dylan explains why Foodini prioritized the B2B data layer first—standardizing opaque restaurant recipes and products—so consumer experiences can be accurate at scale. He shares case studies across SMBs, hotel groups, stadiums, and events showing personalized menus lift revenue and retention, cut staff questions by ~60%, and reduce costly mistakes, while Foodini’s disclaimers keep liability clear. We dig into defensibility (the recipe/ingredient data moat and AI tagging), how to answer “why won’t the majors just build it?,” and what actually moved investors despite early low revenue: hard proof that personalization drives results. Dylan closes with what Foodini needs next—pilots and partnerships with online ordering platforms, multi-unit restaurant groups, stadiums, universities, and airlines.
The full conversation can be found on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Top three findings from this conversation:
The Cold Form That Closed a Lead. Lead investor came not from a warm intro but via a cold website form—rare, but proof to keep all channels open. “ They say when it comes to meeting your lead investor, it's warm introductions. It goes without saying is by far the most success we've had, just even in terms of getting meetings top of funnel. But ironically, I met our lead investor via a form on their website. It was one of those that actually came off. I completed a form. Their team got back to me, had a meeting, and from there, the rest is history. So just goes to show, even though a lot of the time those things don't come off, every so often they do."
AI + Health: Investor Fit Beyond Capital. The lead’s AI focus and partner’s passion for wellness made them a “perfect combo” for Foodini’s thesis. " They [lead investor] were a relatively new fund here in California with an AI focus, and AI is obviously very core and fundamental to what we do and our ability to scale our solution accurately. We did some research on them and their main partner there, who was also a guy who had a lot of interest in wellness, health, longevity, and lifestyle. So we quickly identified that the combination of that AI focus plus that vision in terms of health, wellness, longevity was the perfect combo for us.”
ROI Case Studies Across Verticals. Enterprise, SMB, hotels, stadiums—all showed stronger retention, revenue lift, and fewer staff questions when Foodini was implemented. " Our data is showing that personalizing the menus and giving that experience to the consumers can drive revenue by as much as 15- 20% bottom line for restaurants.”
🧐 Noteworthy
🏭 Swedish cultivated meat startup Re:meat has teamed up with Biotech Heights to establish the first cultivated meat pilot facility in Scandinavia, to be built in Lund. In related news, The CRAFT Consortium in the Netherlands has launched what it says is the world’s first cultivated meat farm, backed by EIT Food with an initial $2M grant (h/t FoodHack).
🌾 UC Davis scientists have used CRISPR gene-editing to develop wheat plants that can boost their own fertilizer production by triggering soil bacteria to fix nitrogen. They believe this breakthrough can help cut costs and reduce pollution worldwide (h/t FoodHack).
📉 Some 40+ major alt protein companies have shut down or been acquired in the past year alone in an intense market correction, a new Green Queen analysis shows.
🤝 John Deere has acquired California-based GUSS Automation, to integrate its autonomous spraying systems used for high-value crops. Here’s a cool 2 min video on how the robots work.
🥑 Tesco is trialling avocado scanners in five U.K. stores. The scanners use X-ray technology to let shoppers understand how ripe avocados are, enabling them to cut food waste. Do the scanners work? Some folks have tested and are skeptical.
🌍 News from the FoodTech Weekly community
👨🏻💻 Win-Win (🇬🇧) is hiring a Food Scientist (R&D, alt-chocolate).
🥇 The FoodTech 500 (also known as the ‘Fortune 500’ of the AgriFoodTech sector) is open for applications now.
🍄🟫 The Future is Fungi Award 2025 is officially open for applications — looking for startups turning fungi into world-changing innovations.
🐶 Our friends at Petgood are currently offering a neat discount on their insect-based pet food — delivering all over Europe. Use code Petgoodfriends20 at checkout.
Want to share some FoodTech news/project with other FoodTech Weekly subscribers? Hit reply.
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🎲 Random Stuff
🍺 The rise of beer made by AI.
🧠 The behavioural science that can help us choose more sustainable foods.
🧐 The price of sugar free.
🐍 Florida has started using robot rabbits (essentially modified plush toy rabbits) to lure Burmese pythons out of their hiding spots. Officials say Florida may have as many as 300K Burmese pythons.
🗽 New York, New York: In the last year, local real estate developers filed 28 permits for 99-unit buildings — double the number from the previous 16 years combined. Why not 100-unit (or more) buildings? It turns out a new NYC rule requires property developers to pay workers higher salaries for buildings with 100+ apartments, and developers feel this is too financially burdensome.
I’ve got 99 units, but a wage hike ain’t one
I love you.
Daniel
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🎵 This issue was produced while listening to You and I by London Grammar.
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