Hi there,

Slightly slower newsweek in AgriFoodTech, likely due to Easter and Passover. But our team of highly trained monkeys nevertheless managed to pull together a new issue of FoodTech Weekly.

By the way, if you’re attending HackSummit in Lausanne, join the Investment Climate Dinner on April 22nd — an exclusive gathering of AgriFood Tech founders. No investors, no panels, no pitching. Just founders who are building, opening their networks, and genuinely helping each other. Daniel will be there. More info here.

This week's rundown:

🚜 Nature Robots harvests €4M, and Traktorarvid $0.75M, for autonomous electric tractors
🏭 JBS opens $37M alt protein center in Brazil
🧞‍♂️ The ultimate garden party: Scientists engineer a 3-in-1 psychedelic plant

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🇩🇪 Nature Robots, €4M ($4.7M), modular autonomous robotics powered by AI for agricultural sustainability and productivity. Investors: Climentum Capital, Bayern Kapital, and Planetary Impact Ventures.

🇬🇧 Fermtech, £2.5M (~$3.2M), sustainable cocoa alternative. Investors: Elbow Beach, Carbon 13, and Empirical Ventures.

🇮🇱 Finally Foods, $2.6M preseed, producing casein protein in potatos via plant molecular farming. Investors: Central Bottling Company (CBC Group) – the national distributor for Coca-Cola, I-Lab Angels, and other private backers.

🇳🇴 Foovi, NOK 9.7M (~$900K), SaaS platform for food & drink producers. Investors: Rockstart Agri Food Fund, Tvedt & Co, Sprettert, and T.D. Veen.

🇸🇪 Traktorarvid, SEK 7M ($0.75M), autonomous electric tractors. Investors: N/A.

🇳🇱 Mill Republic, undisclosed pre-seed, decentralised grain processing platform enabling small-scale farmers to mill grains locally, assess quality, and connect with buyers. Investors: Planetary Impact Ventures and Rotterdam de Boer op.

This week, Alex Shandrovsky had conversations with:

🇮🇹 David Bassani, Founding Partner of Maia Ventures. Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

🇳🇿 Sandhya Sriram, CEO of Sprout Agritech. Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

🇳🇱 Jara van den Bogaerde, Open Innovation Manager at Royal Cosun. Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

📉 Vietnam has nearly doubled its low-emission rice target, two years early. The program helps smallholders adopt new farming practices, which reduce emissions by 3-4 tons of CO2e per hectare compared to conventional growing.

🐟No more fish oil. Amid growing fish oil shortages, algal oil has become a cost-competitive alternative source of omega-3s.

🥕 Austrian startup Afreshed has acquired German rival Etepetete to consolidate the “ugly produce” market in the DACH region, alongside a mid-seven-figure investment from Raiffeisen-Holding Niederösterreich-Wien to support its German expansion and logistics tech development.

🍔 The world’s largest meat company, JBS, just made a $37M bet on alternative proteins. The company opened a 4,000 sq m biotech center in Brazil dedicated to “superproteins”, a range of functional and alternative proteins (such as cultivated meat) for the food, supplement, and precision nutrition markets.

🚁 Following our coverage of the last-mile delivery sector, it seems like drones are catching some wind: Wing is expanding into the SF Bay Area, Manna raised $50M , and Zipline pulled in another $200M.

👃 Harvard researchers have developed an “electronic nose”: A waterproof ear tag for cows designed to measure methane emissions in enclosed spaces. The three-layer sensor detects gases, compounds, and weather changes, with real-world barn testing planned next. Read more at Anthropocene. (H/t Larissa Zimberoff)

👎Mississippi has passed legislation banning the sale of lab-grown dairy products, including precision fermented milk, becoming the first US state to extend cultivated meat restrictions to dairy.

🌭 Why a vegan sausage pioneer, THIS cofounder Andy Shovel, is setting up an AI law firm.

🇨🇭 HackSummit in Lausanne is now just 2 weeks’ away. Join hundreds of founders, investors, and ecosystem actors in FoodTech and ClimateTech for a few exciting days full of inspiring insights, networking, side events, and more. Use FTW20 for 20% off your ticket.

🤯 Wow! The 27 Most Beautiful Places in the World by Architectural Digest. Ilkka here: Cappadocia, listed as the no 26, is an absolutely amazing place in many ways! Also happy to see Finland's Lapland named here. ❄️

🍫Californian chocolate recalled for being spiked with Viagra ingredients. The two recalled products are Gold Lion Aphrodisiac Chocolate Male Enhancement Sachet and Ilum S*x Chocolate Male S*xual Enhancement Booster. We have so many questions, but most importantly, the dangerous products are off the market.

🍄 This should be interesting: Scientists Create Plant That Produces Ayahuasca, Shrooms, and Toad Psychedelics All At Once.

We love you.
Daniel, Ilkka, and Alex

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🎵 This issue was produced while Ilkka listened to What I’m Not by End of You. Daniel was listening to Let Somebody Go by Coldplay and Selena Gomez.

By Daniel Skavén Ruben, Ilkka Taponen, and Alex Shandrovsky.
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