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Hi there,
Daniel here. Yesterday, EAT Foundation announced they’ll wind down operations in 2026, ‘against a backdrop of profound change in the international donor landscape, where funding priorities and conditions have shifted significantly.’
I was deeply saddened to hear this news. EAT’s work around transforming food systems has been absolutely groundbreaking, from the EAT-Lancet Commission reports (I was fortunate enough to attend the launches in both 2019 and 2025) to landmark summits like EAT Stockholm Food Forum. EAT has had a massive impact in the food systems community, elevating the science, and advancing the global conversation in ways that cannot be overstated. Dr. Gunhild A. Stordalen, EAT’s co-founder, has truly created a lasting legacy.
I wanted to include a sad GIF following the EAT announcement, and my mind immediately went to Dawson Leery of Dawson’s Creek.
Sadly, James Van Der Beek passed away this week after his battle with cancer. It feels like part of my childhood died with him.
Rest in peace, James.
Giphy
This week's rundown:
💰 Upside Robotics and Agovor each raise multi million rounds for farm robots
💵 Polybee and UBEES score big funding rounds for tech-enabled pollination and more
🧈 How a huge butter sculpture will power homes
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CONVERSATIONS
Ranjot Singh Dhaliwal of Sustainabite
Ranjot Singh Dhaliwal’s path to founding Sustainabite was built on pure grit. After realizing Canada’s supply chain robbed produce of its flavor, the immigrant entrepreneur faced a daunting hurdle: no credit history and no capital. His solution? The “long road.” For three years, Ranjot worked grueling 16-hour days—balancing a 9-to-5 with driving Uber Eats until 1 AM. He saved every penny until he hit a $100,000 goal. Today, those late-night deliveries fuel a quiet vertical farming revolution in British Columbia. In this interview, Ranjot shares how that sacrifice is fixing a "broken" food system, starting with the most fragile crop: basil. Read the full conversation here.
FUNDING
Bees, robots, and more
🇺🇸 GrubMarket, $50M, food supply-chain platform. Investors: Flume, Future Food Fund, Liberty Street Funds, MY Securities, Portfolia Funds, and other investors.
🇫🇷 UBEES, €8M ($9.5M), technology-enabled beekeeping and pollination programmes. Investors: Round co-led by Starquest and Capagro. Followed by Newtree Impact.
🇨🇦 Upside Robotics, $7.5M, self-driving farm robots. Investors: Plural, Garage Capital and the founders of Clearpath Robotics.
🇮🇩 Green Rebel Foods, $7M, Plant-based meat. Investors: Apex Link Ventures Limited, Unovis Asset Management, Better Bite Ventures, Teja Ventures, and CJ CheilJedang.
🇺🇸 Polybee, $4.3M, Automated yield forecasting and pollination. Investors: SEEDS Capital, Jorge Heraud
🇺🇸 The Bland Company, $2.7M, plant proteins from agricultural side streams. Investors: Undisclosed.
🇳🇿 Agovor, AU$3M ($2.1M), electric autonomous farm robots. Investors: Tenacious Ventures, Hort Innovation Australia (via the Hort Innovation Investment Fund managed by Artesian, and an individual investor.
🇸🇪 Big Akwa, SEK 11M (€1M, $1.2M), land-based fish farming system. Investors: Grant by Sustainable Business Development Västernorrland.
INVESTMENT CLIMATE PODCAST
Alexander Fuglesang of FLOCEAN on how to get funded in 2026
In this episode, I sit down with Alexander Fuglesang, Founder and CEO of FLOCEAN, a Norwegian company moving freshwater production to the subsea. Alexander shares the grueling 18-month journey of closing a Series A that involved a mix of philanthropists, sovereign climate funds (Nysnø), specialized VCs (Burnt Island Ventures), and a major strategic (Xylem). We discuss the harsh reality that the water industry is just as conservative as oil & gas, forcing FLOCEAN to pivot from selling massive projects to building a "First of a Kind" (FOAK) unit on their own balance sheet. Alexander also breaks down the specific Project Finance/SPV structure they use to fund high-CapEx infrastructure and how they identified their beachhead market of 94 countries based on depth, scarcity, and geopolitical stability.
🎧 Listen to the full episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts to hear how Alexander’s existing investors saved the round by offering a flat valuation term sheet to trigger outside interest.
Alex’s Top Findings:
The "Flat Round" Bridge to Strategics. When the Series A dragged into a second closing and the market cooled, FLOCEAN’s existing investors (Three Bird Partners and Burnt Island) didn't force a down round. Instead, they offered a term sheet at the same valuation to signal confidence. This lack of predatory terms gave Alexander the leverage to shop the deal and eventually land Xylem as a major strategic investor. "Our two lead investors... said we're going to write you a term sheet for the same valuation and we're supporting. If you can take that out there and you can shop around... we will encourage that... that went into triggering the interest of Xylem... and then the round got seriously oversubscribed."
Being ‘Climate Tech’ Can Actually Hurt You. FLOCEAN struggled by being lumped into capital-heavy climate categories like batteries and hydrogen. Their challenge was reframing from “green infrastructure” to “commercial water producer with climate upside.” " It was quite challenging because the physical stuff is capital-intensive, and we were quite early lumped into sort of the climate tech space. We're a water producer with the next generation sort of technology, but we're lumped together with green infrastructure, batteries, and EVs. "
The Pivot: Building "First of a Kind" (FOAK) on Spec. Despite a strong track record in subsea oil & gas, FLOCEAN realized that no client wants to be first, and no infrastructure investor wants to fund the pilot. The pivot was accepting that they had to finance the first commercial-scale unit themselves to prove the technology before unlocking project finance. "We were quite convinced that we could... go straight for a big, profitable commercial project... So we had to really pivot when we understood that nobody wanted to be first... The big pivot we did was basically we have to build on spec our own plant. It has to be big enough to be commercially taken seriously and small enough that we could cover it with our own budget."
NOTEWORTHY
Spilled milk, stuffed wallets: Oatly loses a slogan but finds its first profit in seven years
Impossible CEO stepping down sparked discussion on the challenges of plant-based proteins
🗣️ FoodTech founder Adam Melonas reflections on the stepping down of Impossible Foods’ CEO sparked an interesting discussion on the challenges of marking the meat-alternatives and, for example, the usage of the words Clean Meat.
⚖️ The U.K. Supreme Court has ruled that Oatly’s slogan ‘Post Milk Generation’ cannot be trademarked or used on its products in the U.K. Oatly just delivered a full year of profitable growth, for the first time in seven years.
📈 Tokyo-based cellular agriculture startup IntegriCulture achieved full-year profitability in 2025, becoming one of the first in the sector to break even.
🤥 Why food fraud persists, even with better tech.
👷 Deep tech and hardware startups, like many FoodTech ones, are capital-intensive and often need to finance their CAPEX with equity. Tangible which just raised $4.3M offers a debt-based alternative to ownership dilution.
NEWS FROM THE FTW COMMUNITY
Applications open for MINDS by WEF, CoLab Tech Accelerator, FoodTech World Cup, and more.
👨🏻💻 Zya (🇬🇧) is hiring a Senior Scientist.
🌐 AI for Food: From advisory and precision farming, water-smart practices, ingredient discovery to supply chain optimization, food security, regenerative practices, forecasting, credit, insurance and others - AI is reshaping agri-food systems. Applications are now open for MINDS, a World Economic Forum program recognizing high-impact AI solutions tackling urgent industry and societal challenges. Selected innovators will gain global visibility, cross-industry exchange, recognition at major Forum events, as well as the opportunity to shape the work of the Food Innovators Network. Apply by March 1, 2026.
👩🔬 The Science Entrepreneur Award of The Future is Fungi has launched. Win €60K to support your path, get access to global top-tier experts and advisors, get visibility, and more. Learn more and apply.
🚀 Mondelēz International is launching a new cohort for their CoLab Tech accelerator. Startups get access to the R&D leadership, Ventures Team, internal specialists & leading VC’s. More info and apply, by March 31.
📋 Forward Fooding unveiled the 2025 FoodTech500 finalists at Gulfood 2026, revealing a decisive shift upstream: AgTech now dominating, alternative proteins consolidating around profitability, and circular economy solutions surging. The final rankings will be released in March 2026. Explore the full list.
🏆 Enter your startup into the FoodTech World Cup. The ultimate tournament to showcase the world’s best startups in Food BioTech hosted by Nestlé and FoodHack. Apply today to take part.
RANDOM STUFF
😏🍆 Taking 'work-life balance' to a new level
🛏️ The local branch of the Centre Party in the Swedish rural town of Älvdalen has put forward a proposal allowing municipal employees to use their “wellness hour” for, ahem, consensual intimate activity. The municipality is currently assessing the proposal and a decision will be made before the summer.
🧈 How a 1,000 lb (450 kg) Pennsylvania butter sculpture will power homes.
📱 Researchers have developed a machine that tells you the nutrient density of various foods. The only thing left is to actually define nutrient density.
🤷🏻♂️ AntiRender is a website that lets you upload an architectural render, and get back what it'll actually look like on a random Tuesday in November: “No sunshine. No happy families. No impossibly green trees. Just cold, honest, depressing reality.”
🌾 Why Mississippi rice farmers are considering letting their rice rot.
🤞 The Finnish startup Donut Labs announced at CES in January 2026 that it has developed a solid-state battery that could charge electric vehicles in minutes, last much longer, and be safer than current batteries. If true, it would mean an enormous step toward emission-free transportation. However, the company has not yet provided independent proof, and experts remain skeptical. To respond to all the 'too good to be true' comments, the company launched the 'I Donut Believe' website and promises to bring evidence of its innovation on February 20th. Fingers crossed!
🥤 Liquid Salad is a thing, allowing people to gulp down a blend of e.g. cucumber, kale, celery, and broccoli, in 30 seconds, “maybe less”.
We love you.
Daniel, Ilkka, and Alex
- - -
🎵 This issue was produced while Ilkka was listening to In Fire Reborn by The Haunted, and Daniel was listening to Homewreckr by sombr.
THE LEFTOVERS
By Daniel Skavén Ruben, Ilkka Taponen, and Alex Shandrovsky.
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