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Hi there,
After a few quieter weeks, the news is back in full force.
Ilkka just wrote a blog post about open sourcing as a strategy to scale new technologies — could this also apply to FoodTech?
Daniel reflected on the new U.S. food pyramid which has been flipped upside down, which reminded him about this old Dilbert strip:
(Scott Adams just passed away, and yes we know that he was controversial).
Matthieu Vincent of DigitalFoodLab shared some new data and insights on the state of AgriFoodTech: “In the current context, I think this graph should be interpreted with some optimism, and more with a “half-full glass” view. Let’s remember that there are currently many reasons for investors NOT to bet on FoodTech, including recent failures (in insect proteins, vertical farming, alternative proteins, and quick-commerce, just to name a few), a low-reward environment for risky investments, and a preference for AI. Also, the increase in the number of partnerships between large corporations and startups, both for commercialisation and scale-up efforts, reduces the latter’s need for funds. In a word, observing stable AgriFoodTech funding for the third year in a row almost feels like positive news.”
This week's rundown:
💰 Bloemteknik scores $4M for its horticultural lighting solutions
💵 Rebellyous Foods bags $3.5M; shows that alt protein funding is still happening
🍱 Gen Alpha’s sushi phase is expensive
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FUNDING
Sigrid raises $5M to tackle blood sugar & weight
Image credit: Sigrid Therapeutics
🇸🇪 Sigrid, $5M, medical food designed for blood sugar and weight management in prediabetes, type 2 diabetes, and obesity. Investors: Existing and new undisclosed investors.
🇬🇧 Bloemteknik, $4M, horticultural lighting solutions. Investors: Foresight Group.
🇩🇪 SenseUP - €3M ($3.5M), biopesticides that fight plant pests via RNA interference. Investors: Capnamic, Simon Capital, Rockstart, CHECK24 Impact and HBG Ventures.
🇺🇸 Rebellyous Foods, $3.5M, plant-based meat. Investors: Undisclosed.
🇫🇮 Mö Foods, $2.8M, oat-based cheeses. Investors: Nordic FoodTech VC, Ikorni Invest, Heino Group Oy, Vaens, Adventurous Ideas and others.
🇳🇱 The Protein Brewery, €2.3M ($2.7M), mycoprotein powder for dairy alternatives. Grantor: EU Life Programme
🇬🇧 Metir, $1.3M, Water testing technology. Investors: Undisclosed.
🇺🇸 GrazeMate, $1.2M, drones that move cattle for rotational grazing systems. Investors: Y Combinator, Antler, NextGen Ventures, and Meat & Livestock Australia.
INVESTMENT CLIMATE PODCAST
Jim Mellon of Agronomics on how to get funded in 2026
In this episode, I sit down with Jim Mellon, the billionaire entrepreneur and Executive Director of Agronomics, a leading listed company in the field of cellular agriculture. Jim provides a candid, no-holds-barred post-mortem on the recent collapses of industry darlings Believer Meats and Meatable, attributing their downfall to gross overspending and "over-speced" facilities. He contrasts this with his current "frugal" playbook, revealing how portfolio company Clean Food Group acquired a fully functional production facility in Liverpool for just £1M—a fraction of the cost of new builds. Jim also breaks down his aggressive expansion into the Middle East, detailing the specific energy advantages and 50% government subsidies that make the UAE the next logical hub for fermentation.
🎧 Listen to the full episode to hear Jim’s forecast for the next 12 months and why he believes "stainless steel lasts forever.” on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
Alex’s Top Findings:
The "Frugal" Playbook: Buying Distressed Assets. The era of building greenfield mega-facilities is over. Jim’s winning strategy involves identifying distressed industrial assets and repurposing them. By buying a facility in Liverpool for £1M (essentially the cost of scrap) rather than building new, the cost of capital drops from ~25% of turnover to 4%. ”We recognized that stainless steel lasts forever. So if you can acquire stainless steel that's maybe been in production for 50 years and refurbish it, it's a lot cheaper than getting it made in China... We paid 1 million pounds for that... It means that the capital cost of carry for that company... is 4% of turnover.”
Why the Giants Fell: Over-Specing and Over-Valuation. Jim offers a blunt assessment of why Believer Meats and Meatable entered administration. It wasn't just the market downturn; it was an internal failure to manage cash burn and an obsession with building "state-of-the-art" facilities that the unit economics couldn't support yet. “The symptomatic problem of the companies that have gone bad for investors have been overspending and overvaluation... Believer Meats... built a state-of-the-art facility in North Carolina which was over specced, frankly. And Meatable was also, in my opinion, overspending... leases of 1.6 million euros a year... high wages. Lots of unnecessary activities.”
What “Good” Looks Like: Frugal + Opportunistic + Controlled IP + Near Market. Jim gives a clear success checklist: founders who spend carefully, own the critical tech, and can sell something in the near term — not a decade out. “ So what we're looking for is companies that have a frugal mindset, have an opportunistic mindset, that have IP that is absolutely within their control, and that have an identifiable market that's not so far away. We can actually see them selling products quite quickly.”
NOTEWORTHY
Lettuce look up: Singapore unveils the world’s tallest indoor Farm
Image: Greenphyto
🇸🇬 The world’s tallest indoor vertical farm, 23m (75ft), opens in Singapore after an $80M investment.
👏 The Rockefeller Foundation and Builders Vision have launched the Food is Medicine Impact Fund, a $10M fund to help Food is Medicine programs that aim to improve health outcomes for for millions of Americans living with chronic, diet-related conditions.
♻️ UK sustainable packaging startup Notpla and 14 supporting partners have been awarded a €4M ($4.7M) grant from the Horizon Europe program to create a plastic-free, home-compostable coffee cup, Green Queen reports.
🛢️ The ins and outs of used cooking oil theft.
🥛 Remilk alongside Gad Dairy have launched New Milk, a cow-free, dairy identical milk made via precision fermentation, in Israeli supermarkets.
🪦 Plant-based milk startup DUG, and plant-based seafood startup Hooked Foods, both from Sweden, have filed for bankruptcies.
💶 AgTech fund The First Thirty is raising €100M to back companies connecting soil biology, food quality, and human health.
NEWS FROM THE FTW COMMUNITY
FPP and HackSummit coming up
🇮🇹 FoodSeed, an acceleration program for disruptive Italian AgriFoodTech and FoodTech startups (or international startups willing to relocate or with at least one Italian founder), is open for applications. It offers strategic and industrial support, direct access to mentors and corporate partners, and an initial investment of €250K. Potential follow-ons up to €500k. More info here.
🏟️ Don’t miss: Future of Protein Production in Chicago in February and Hack Summit in Lausanne in April.
🌱 The ProVeg Incubator, the world’s first accelerator dedicated to alt-protein startups, is now accepting applications for its Fast-track to Impact Programme. This 3-month, fully online initiative is designed to help early-stage startups navigate today’s challenging market and accelerate their growth. The programme is fully online, equity-free, and open to startups worldwide. Applications close Feb 8, 2026. More info here.
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RANDOM STUFF
Rights, robots, sushi bills, and survival checks: A week in modern absurdity
📣 Know Your Rights. Jasmin Hume shared some Silicon Valley-level humor in this invite for beers. We are dying to know how it was and when the next meeting is.
🤖 The AI food delivery hoax that fooled Reddit: A “whistleblower” tried to corroborate his viral post with AI-generated evidence. Interesting story by Casey Newton of Platformer.
😵 Are you dead yet? In China, a new app is checking on the health of the country’s citizens. “Are You Dead?”—which requires users to check in every two days or else have their emergency contact notified—has become the most popular paid app for Chinese customers. The app is particularly popular among young people living alone.
🍣 North American parents are going broke from their kids' sushi obsession. She doesn’t want fries and chicken nuggets; she wants tropical shrimp tempura,” […] says Laureano Escobar about his 6-year-old daughter Mimi. “[The bill'] was $120 and I thought, ‘Oh my God.’ We need to get her into something else.”
We love you.
Daniel, Ilkka, and Alex
- - -
🎵 While writing this issue, Ilkka was listening to Are You Dead Yet? by Children of Bodom. Daniel was listening to Past Won't Leavy My Bed by Joji.
THE LEFTOVERS
By Daniel Skavén Ruben, Ilkka Taponen, and Alex Shandrovsky.
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