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Daniel here — small correction: We wrote in a headline last week that Monarch Tractor was acquired by Cargill. That’s wrong. Monarch Tractor was acquired by Caterpillar (in my defense, I got home from the HackSummit After Party at 2am to write the newsletter).
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This week's rundown:

💶 Omegga bags €10M to detect egg gender before hatching
💵 Opalia lands CAD $3.2M for precision fermentation dairy
🏆 The 4 finalists of the $1.5M Food Planet Prize have been announced

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🇬🇧 U.K. — Wild Bioscience raises £45M (~$59M) Series A [AgTech]
AI-driven crop design for climate-resilient varieties.
Lead: Ellison Institute of Technology
Follows: Oxford Science Enterprises, Braavos, University of Oxford

🇩🇪 Germany — Omegga raises €10M (~$11.4M) Seed [Animal Health]
AI-powered spectroscopy to detect egg sex before hatching, eliminating male chick culling.
Lead: IQ Capital and Capnamic
Follows: N/A

🇨🇦 Canada — Opalia raises CAD $3.2M (~$2.3M) Seed [Cell-Cultured Dairy
FoodTech startup producing real milk without cows using cell-cultured dairy.
Lead: Nàdarra Ventures
Follows: Spring Capital, UCEED, Anges Quebec, Investissement Québec, Cycle Momentum, and BoxOne Ventures

🇺🇸 USA — Fermeate raises $2M Seed [Biotech / Fermentation]
Light-based technology to boost cell productivity in biomanufacturing, compatible with existing fermentation systems.
Lead: Newfund Capital
Follows: SOSV, Ajinomoto Group Ventures, Ki Tua Fund, Heuristic Capital Partners, Momentum Capital, Plug and Play, Tesserakt Ventures, and Ag Startup Engine

🇺🇸 USA — Afresh raises $34M [Supply Chain & Logistics]
AI platform helping grocers manage fresh food inventory and reduce waste.
Lead: Just Climate and HighSage Ventures
Follows: Spark Capital, Innovation Endeavors, VMG Catalyst, and Insight Partners.

🇺🇸 USA — Bond Pet Foods raises undisclosed [Precision Fermentation]
Precision-fermented animal proteins for pet food, partnering with Symrise to develop new products meeting pet nutritional requirements
Lead: N/A
Follows: N/A

This week, Alex Shandrovsky had conversations with:

🇺🇸 Alex Davisson, Senior Associate at Plug and Play. Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

🇳🇴 Kristoffer Magnor, Managing Director at Kilter. Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

🌡 The Western U.S. continues to grapple with persistent drought, with March 2026 ranking among the three driest months ever recorded in the country. As El Niño looks set to shape a challenging second half of 2026, the region will be counting on meaningful spring rainfall in the weeks ahead.

🚜 Not Every Shiny Robot Is a Solution. (Offrange on AgTech robotics).

💡 Swiss startup SentiaNova has emerged from stealth with a pre-processing technology that removes off-flavours from plant proteins, Green Queen reports.

🤝 Global juice and speciality ingredient solutions company Prodalim has acquired Better Juice, a FoodTech company that has developed a solution that can cut sugar in juice by up to 80%.

🏆 After receiving more than 1,000 nominations, The Food Planet Prize (the world’s largest environmental prize) has announced the top 4 finalists; Andhra Pradesh Community Managed Natural Farming (India), Conscious Kitchen (U.S.), NoPalm Ingredients (Netherlands) and The Savanna Institute (U.S.). The winner will be crowned on June 2, taking home $1.5M — each of the remaining finalists will receive $150K each.

📝 The controversial AI giant Palantir inks a $300M deal with the USDA to safeguard food supply. The USDA will use the company’s technology to ‘manage farmland as geopolitical risks threaten global supply chains.’ (we’re left to wonder what this means in practice).

🛵 The criticism of the delivery apps continues: In Stockholm, Sweden, 80% of deliveries are done by fossil fuel mopeds. Foodora promised a full phase-out of all two-stroke mopeds by 2024 in Sweden, but this hasn’t happened.

🤩 GPT 2 Image can create full LEGO sets, and with actual Bricklink IDs one can order the parts and build it.

🧩 Colorado grandpa Lou Salas just completed the world’s largest commercially sold puzzle (with help from his now 8-year-old granddaughter). The 60,000 piece puzzle, depicting a world map, took him 800 hours over 4 years to complete. Salas got nervous toward the end when he realized one piece was missing: “I didn’t sleep that night. One piece ruins the whole thing”. Luckily the company behind the $600 puzzle shipped Salas the missing piece.

We love you.
Daniel, Ilkka, and Alex

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🎵 This issue was produced while Ilkka listened to In the Shape of a Demon by Thyrane, and Daniel listened to Ride at Dawn (In Bloom 2026) by Above & Beyond and Zoë Johnston.

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