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Hi there,
It’s Friday again. Let’s just dive into things, shall we?
This week's rundown:
🤖 Agtonomy raises $18M to scale AI tractor automation for mowing, spraying, and transport.
🔫 Carbon Robotics nets $20M to expand LaserWeeder AI robots for precise weed removal.
🚫 Norway bans junk-food ads aimed at children, targeting sugary drinks and energy drinks
Let's go!
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💬 Conversation with Didier Toubia of Aleph Farms
After more than a decade at the intersection of life sciences and food innovation, Didier Toubia set out to rebuild the meat supply chain from the cell up. Together with Professor Shulamit Levenberg and Dr. Neta Lavon, he co-founded Aleph Farms, a pioneer in cultivated beef that blends real animal cells with plant-based ingredients to create structured cuts of meat — no slaughter required. Aleph Farms is redefining what premium protein can look like: sustainable, scalable, and healthy indulgent. As Aleph Farms prepares for market launches in Israel, Singapore, and beyond, I spoke with Didier about what it takes to bring cultivated beef to the world.
Didier Toubia / Aleph Farms
💰 Funding
🇺🇸 Agtonomy, which develops AI-powered automation systems for tractors, has closed a $18M Series B round led by DBL Partners. The startup’s platform helps farmers remotely manage and automate field operations such as mowing, spraying, and transport.
🇮🇳 Fragaria Fruits, which does hightech indoor vertical farming of strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries, has fetched $2M in Seed funding led by WEH Ventures and Rainmatter. The company is expanding with a large-scale facility in Bangalore (h/t: FoodHack)
🇺🇸 Plastomics has banked $5.8M in Series B, backed by e.g. Fulcrum Global Capital. The company’s gene-editing platform uses plant chloroplasts rather than nuclei to introduce transgenic traits in major crops like corn and soybean, which comes with several advantages.
🇯🇵 Umami United, which produces plant-based egg alternatives, has raised a ¥310M ($2M) pre-Series A round, backed by e.g. mint and Beyond Next Ventures.
🇺🇸 Carbon Robotics has harvested $20M in new funding, led by Giant Ventures. The company develops AI-powered robots for agriculture that improve farm-efficiency; one example is the LaserWeeder system that removes weeds with precision, using laser.
Carbon Robotics
🇬🇧 Mondra, which builds an AI-powered platform to help map previously untraceable supply chains, has bagged £10M ($13M) in Series funding, led by Albion VC and Planet A Ventures. The platform allows e.g. major retailers, food companies and suppliers to understand the environmental impact of their products, cut emissions, and build more resilient sourcing strategies.
🇳🇱 TRACT, which builds agritech supply chain intelligence software, has announced $18.6M in Series A funding, led by Icos Capital and joined by e.g. Future Food Fund, Rabo Investments, and Pymwymic. The company’s platform helps some of the world’s largest food and ag companies to map, monitor, and manage sourcing risk.
🇧🇪 Biotech startup AmphiStar has secured €2.5M ($2.9M) from SPRIND (the German Federal Agency for Disruptive Innovation), bringing the total awards from SPRIND to €6M ($7M). The company develops circular, fermentation-based biosurfactants, used in several sectors including agriculture. Biosurfactants can serve as more sustainable alternatives for dispersion of ag formulations on fields or e.g. for breaking down soil contaminants.
🇬🇧 UPP (Upcycled Plant Power) has scored £1.5M ($1.9M) in seed funding led by Elbow Beach Capital to commercialize its patented technology for extracting high-value protein from broccoli leaves — a by-product usually left in the field. The company uses AI-guided robotics to harvest and process the leaves efficiently, turning agricultural waste into a sustainable protein source for food and nutraceutical applications (h/t ClimateHack).
🎙️ Investment Climate: Johan Henriksson, CEO & Co-founder of Seaqure Labs
This week, Alex Shandrovsky met with Johan Henriksson, CEO & Co-founder of Seaqure Labs. The company is scaling mycelium-based feed ingredients via solid-state fermentation, aiming to replace fishmeal/soy with a cost-competitive, sustainable, drop-in alternative. Seaqure raised €470K pre-seed led by Sweden’s Almi with angel consortia.
The full conversation can be found on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Top three findings from this conversation:
Local, sector-agnostic capital closed faster than EU agri-food VCs. Seaqure Labs began by pitching pan-European agri-food investors but learned many were either stage-mismatched, reserving capital for portfolios, or already “full” in a given fermentation modality. Shifting to Swedish, sector-agnostic investors with a clear business-model story accelerated the round. “ We started off having a fully European VC-focus. But they did help us after we pivoted into looking more at regional and Swedish investors. So we did get good introductions to different angel investors, angel consortia, and potential VCs that are investing in AgriFood tech.”
Smart use of non-dilutive ‘startup debt’ to bridge to pre-seed. A low-risk regional loan covered early salaries and project work, repaid only as revenues/profits arrive—buying time to run a disciplined pre-seed process.“There is something called a regional loan. It’s a very low-risk loan. Once you start generating revenue, you start paying off this loan slowly.”
Valuation: milestone-based, maturity-driven, not headline chasing. At pre-seed, they avoided inflated valuations seen in earlier European markets and aligned expectations with the current environment. The round was sized to fund key proofs (scalability, trials), accepting slightly higher dilution for realistic next-round readiness. “ We had a thought of slightly higher rounds and valuations in pre-seed… but we realized the market has changed… what matters is proving capability to the next round.”
🧐 Noteworthy
🤝 New Jersey-based Fork & Good, which focuses on cultivated pork production, has acquired California’s Orbillion Bio, a startup known for its cultivated beef and premium meat R&D. The merged company plans to broaden its product pipeline, strengthen regulatory strategy in the US and Europe, and move closer to pilot-scale manufacturing. The announcement follows Gourmey’s acquisition of Vital Meat just two weeks ago, indicating industry consolidation.
🐦 Australian cultivated meat company Vow has debuted Forged Quail, the world’s first regulatory-approved cultured quail product, marking a major milestone for the alt-protein sector. Approved for sale in Singapore, the product combines quail cells with plant-based ingredients to create a premium, chef-driven experience. Vow has launched three direct-to-consumer products under the Forged Quail brand, marking the first time that consumers anywhere can buy cultivated meat products for at-home use, Green Queen reports.
💵 Food System Innovations has been awarded $2M from Bezos Earth Fund to accelerate AI-driven sustainable protein development. The funding will be channelled into scaling AI-powered formulation tools and pilot production, targeting higher-nutrient, lower-environmental-impact animal-free proteins.
🚫 Norway has passed a new law banning junk-food advertising aimed at children and youth, targeting sugary drinks, energy drinks, and other unhealthy products. The legislation is part of the government’s broader effort to make healthy choices easier for minors, but it stops short of regulating product sales. Major brands, including Coca‑Cola, are still allowed to sponsor youth sports and cultural events, a loophole that has drawn criticism from health advocates and regulators.
🌍 News from the FoodTech Weekly community
👨🏻💻 FoodLabs (🇩🇪) is looking for founders wanting to build consumer food brands.
📝 The BEAM Circular Accelerator is now accepting applications for its next cohort, with a deadline of Jan. 11, 2026. The 12-week hybrid program, based in Modesto, Calif., invests in five startups per cohort and offers comprehensive support for circular bioeconomy innovators. Selected startups will receive $100K in total support from BEAM Circular (mix of non-dilutive grant, investment, and California Bioeconomy Innovation Campus credits). BEAM also announced it has named Darko Mandich as its new Managing Director.
🥇Congrats to Ayana Bio which out of 2,000 applying companies just won the Post Harvest and Food Tech Category at THRIVE Global Impact Summit.
🏆 Forward Fooding wants you — learn more and apply today for the 2025 FoodTech500 and showcase your innovation.
Want to share some FoodTech news/project with other FoodTech Weekly subscribers? Hit reply.
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🎲 Random Stuff
🐈⬛ A Spanish town blocked black cat adoptions during Halloween to prevent ‘sinister rituals.’ Speaking about Halloween, here’s why it’s light on chocolate this year.
🤖 The new Neo robot is very cool — even if it’s partially teleoperated:
But of course people online are making jokes about it 🙂
🍓 A hightech strawberry buffet (h/t FoodHack)
🏬 This Brutalist supermarket in Mallorca is really something else.
🛑 Slovakia has passed a law requiring pedestrians to walk no faster than 6 km/h (3 mph) on sidewalks in urban areas. The law also applies to skaters and cyclists, and aims to improve traffic safety — especially in terms of scooter collisions.
I love you.
Daniel
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🎵 This issue was produced while listening to It Ain’t Over ‘Til It’s Over by Lenny Kravitz.
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