#288
Hi there,
Alex here — next week is a big FoodTech week, happening in San Francisco. For FTW, I’ll host a founder dinner, no investors allowed. Register here. And use FTWEEKLY for 10% off the Future Food-Tech conference.
Daniel here — I’ll be at HackSummit Lausanne (🇨🇭) on April 22-23 for the event’s 5th anniversary (I’ve attended every single one!), joining a ton of AgriFoodTech investors and founders. I hope to see many of you there — use FTW20 for a 20% ticket discount as you register.
This week's rundown:
💰Tropic bags $105M for gene-edited non-browning bananas
💰 PlasmaLeap scores $20M for zero-emissions green ammonia for fertilizers
😳 Doomscrolling Wikipedia
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FUNDING
Green ammonia, Gene Editing, and Green Inputs
Science, but make it neon. Image credit: PlasmaLeap Technologies.
🇬🇧 Tropic, $105 million Series C round, gene editing tech to combat threats against bananas such as fungi and viruses, and bring non-browning, extended shelf-life bananas to market. Investors: Forbion Bioeconomy Fund, Corteva, IQ Capital, Just Climate, ABN Amro, Invest International, Temasek, Five Seasons Ventures, Aliment Capital, Sucden Ventures, Genoa Ventures, and Polaris Partners.
🇦🇺 PlasmaLeap Technologies, $20M Series A, Zero-emissions modular reactors to produce green ammonia and nitrate for fertiliser and fuels. Investors: Gates Foundation, Investible, and Yara Growth Ventures (co-leads), with Twynam, GrainCorp Ventures, Uniseed/UniSuper, Artesian, SVG Ventures, and Agnition Ventures.
🇳🇱 Those Vegan Cowboys, €12.25M ($14.2M), animal-free casein developer. Investors: Crowdfunding.
🇺🇸 Mezcla, $10M Series B, plant-based protein snack bar manufacturer. Investors: Bluestein Ventures, Grupo DMI, Habitat Partners, Lever VC, Redwood Consumer - Santatera, Steve Platt, and Tonic Ventures.
🇮🇱 AgriPass, $7.5M seed round, robotic weeding startup. Investors: Harbor Venture Consulting, existing investors (e.g. E44 Climate Ventures) and several strategic partners.
🇧🇪 Rainbow Crops, $7M grant, AI- and genome-editing-powered platform for climate-resilient crops. Investor: Gates Foundation.
🇧🇷 Cellva, $4M Pre-Series A, food ingredients developer using proprietary processing technologies combined with origin-controlled agricultural supply chains. Investors: undisclosed.
🇬🇧 Cytotrait, £3M seed ($4M), crop engineering biotech using proprietary MOSS technology for high-level localised gene expression. Investors: Northern Gritstone (lead), UK Innovation & Science Seed Fund, and Northern Universities Venture Fund.
🇦🇹 NEOH, undisclosed (but ‘multi-million euro’), ZERO+ sugar-reduction technology replacing sugar with functional fibres. Investors: ZINTINUS, REWE Group, and Teseo Capital.
INVESTMENT CLIMATE PODCAST
On the "Anti-Fund" model and the harsh realities of expanding into Asia - Isabelle Decitre, ID Capital
In this episode, I sit down with Isabelle Decitre, founder of ID Capital, a Singapore-headquartered venture investment and innovation advisory firm. Isabelle reveals why she deliberately chose not to raise a traditional VC fund, opting instead to invest her own capital (writing tag-along Series A checks up to $1M) to maintain flexibility and leverage deep "ecosystem intelligence." We discuss the brutal truth about expanding into Asian markets, why startups need to stop using "China is big" as a business plan, and how Australian startup AllG successfully pivoted from complex casein micelles to high-margin Lactoferrin to de-risk their commercialization. Finally, Isabelle throws down a spicy challenge to the industry, questioning if the Silicon Valley "Power Law" actually works in AgriFoodTech.
🎧 Listen to the full episode on Spotify and Apple Podcasts to hear Isabelle’s unfiltered thoughts on funds that rely on a single lucky exit to show returns.
Alex’s Top Findings:
The "Anti-Fund" Ecosystem Model. Isabelle doesn't manage LP money; she invests from her own balance sheet. She argues that the traditional VC mold forces GPs to promise 20%+ IRRs that often aren't realistic in FoodTech. By remaining independent, ID Capital operates as a "one-stop shop" offering startups optionality: if a direct investment isn't the right fit, she can leverage her advisory arm to facilitate introductions to massive strategic corporate clients or showcase the tech at her conference. "We are not a fund... I'm investing my own money. We don't have any LP... I didn't see myself promising 20% plus IRR on a time period of six years... The way I wanted to see myself as a significant player was not just by being defined by my check size, but being defined by whom I could influence and bring around the table."
The Asia Expansion Reality Check: Stay in Your Habitat. Startups frequently pitch Asia expansion based solely on the region's massive population. Isabelle warns that entering Asia is a massive cost center long before it generates revenue. If a startup is thinly funded, her advice is blunt: stay home. You must have dedicated capital and a localized strategy, not just "wishful dreaming." "The best advice I can give you is just to remain in your natural habitat and ecosystem and don't waste your money traveling to China or Asia every other day. It will cost you a bomb... What looks good is when people start to have the awareness that developing Asia would be a cost first before it's a source of revenue."
Pivoting to High-Margin Optionality (The AllG Playbook). Investors today want startups to be as de-risked as possible. Isabelle highlights her investment in AllG to show what good pivoting looks like. Even though they had world-class expertise in precision fermentation for casein micelles, they didn't stubbornly stick to that narrative. They aggressively pivoted to a higher-value, faster-to-commercialize compound (Lactoferrin) and leaned into the Chinese market. "They didn't stay fixated on one application or one narrative. Although they were really very, very proficient in casein micelles... they thought very smartly of pivoting toward higher value compounds... It is really about not being wedded to your own science and your own narrative."
NOTEWORTHY
High-tech snacks for very good boys
From the lab to the Lab! 🦮 Image credit: Magic Valley
🦴 Australian startup Magic Valley has launched Rogue Pet — cultivated meat treats for dogs, to generate early revenue. The first batch of products sold out within a week. This marks the first time cultivated meat is available for pets in Australia, Green Queen reports.
✅ Swedish startup Melt&Marble, which produces animal-free fat, has self-determined its MeltyMarble fat as Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS). This paves the way for launching a first food product later in 2026 together with a commercial partner.
🥛 Oatly is investing $16M in its Swedish oat drink factory, boosting annual output from 150M to 200M liters.
🐟 Aquaculture fund Aqua-Spark Africa has announced the first close of its new fund, at $48M. The fund aims to invest in and develop the aquaculture sector in Sub-Saharan Africa.
😴 People who eat a lot of fibre spend more time in deep sleep, researchers have found in the most comprehensive study to date.
🍒 Thanks to gene editing, a basket of new fruit varieties is coming your way (The Economist).
🍎 “Should I Refrigerate Apples? An A-to-Z Guide to Storing Fruits and Vegetables” (New York Times)
🤝 Buy, Merge, or Die: AgriFoodTech 2025 M&A Trends (Forward Fooding)
NEWS FROM THE FTW COMMUNITY
HackSummit Lausanne is back for the 5th time
🎤 HackSummit returns to Lausanne, Switzerland on April 22-23, 2026 for its 5th anniversary. Over two days, founders, investors, and operators will explore how industrial capacity and food sovereignty are becoming foundational systems in a climate-constrained world. Day 2 dives into Food Sovereignty by scaling stable, regenerative, and secure food systems amid climate volatility and supply risk. Secure your tickets today - use code FTW20 for 20% off a 1 or 2 day pass.
INVESTMENT CLIMATE PODCAST
Navigating the Agri-Tech Landscape: Insights from Proba's CEO Sijbrand Tieleman
In this episode, I sit down with Sijbrand Tieleman, Co-founder and CEO of Proba, an Amsterdam-based startup tackling the massive footprint of fertilizer emissions. Sijbrand walks us through his recent €1.25M ($1.5M USD) extension round, which was led by existing investor Future Food Fund. We discuss the strategic decision to raise from the current cap table rather than burning time chasing new investors, the reality of setting achievable milestones, and why agriculture startups cannot be measured by traditional SaaS ARR metrics. Most importantly, Sijbrand delivers a masterclass on finding a competitive moat by becoming the absolute world leader in a highly specific, hyper-niche use case before expanding into larger markets.
🎧 Listen to the full episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts to hear how Sijbrand navigated the delicate valuation negotiations with his existing investors to secure 18-24 months of runway.
Alex’s Top Findings:
The Power of the Hyper-Niche. Startups often fail by trying to solve too many problems across too many industries. Proba initially explored steel and cement before pivoting entirely to fertilizer emissions. Sijbrand explains that by picking a "vertical within a vertical," Proba created a monopoly. They didn't just target agriculture; they targeted the specific emissions effect of nitrification inhibitors used alongside urea fertilizer for coffee grown in the Minas Gerais region of Brazil. "The more opportunity you give yourself to become successful, that I think is kind of a lesson... just make it super small and then extend from there... You want to position yourself in a way that there's no competition. If somebody wants to solve the problem, they more or less need to come to you."
The "Insider" Extension Round. Instead of spending 8 months pitching 100 new VCs, Proba chose to raise an extension round directly from their current investors. Sijbrand reveals that they began discussing the need for this follow-on capital just two months after closing the previous round. By maintaining transparent communication and setting realistic milestones, they secured the cash needed to focus on the business rather than the roadshow. "We kind of took a bit of an implicit decision to say... we can go out there to the capital market and basically spend a lot of time finding a new investor without guarantee on success, or we spent a bit less time together with the existing investors and basically have more time to spend in the actual business."
Agriculture SaaS is Not Silicon Valley SaaS. Sijbrand highlights a critical disconnect between generalist VCs and AgTech startups. Generalist funds demand rapid Month-over-Month Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) growth. However, agriculture operates on physical, annual growing seasons. Proba partnered with specialized investors (Future Food Fund) who understand that growth in this sector is a compounding, season-by-season process, not an overnight software rocket ship. "Building a business in agriculture has a bit of a different speed... things need to grow in a physical world and they grow in one growing season... The normal SaaS investors who are used to [rapid] ARR levels are not interested yet.”
RANDOM STUFF
Doomscrolling Wikipedia, Minesweeper goes geopolitical, and how music causes car crashes
🧑🏼🌾 Can you out-manage a data-driven harvest? Try out The Harvest Manager Challenge, a quick, fun online game.
☠️ You can now doomscroll Wikipedia.
🤔 Salmon sperm skincare.
💣 Minesweeper game, but make it Strait of Hormuz:
💥 Does the release of new music result in more distracted driving, causing more accidents? Yes, it does!
🦊 A sly fox snuck aboard a cargo ship in Southampton, U.K. in February and arrived in New York two weeks later.
🐦⬛ Tired of being a bird?
🫣 Top tip for a subject line to improve your cold email open rates (via Patrick Ryan):
We love you.
Daniel, Ilkka, and Alex
- - -
🎵 This issue was produced while Ilkka listened to Wildfire by Periphery. Daniel was listening to Pussy Palace by Lily Allen.
THE LEFTOVERS
By Daniel Skavén Ruben, Ilkka Taponen, and Alex Shandrovsky.
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