The Week in Agrifoodtech: Licious nets $150m, Bear Robotics raises $81m

Licious, an India e-commerce marketplace for meat, scored $150 million in Series F-plus investment this week, while California’s Bear Robotics bagged $81 million for its robot restaurant servers. Over in agtech, Local Bounti snapped up a rival greenhouse grower for $123 million – and ‘crowdfarming’ platform AcreTrader scored more than $20 million in fresh funding.

Foodtech startup funding

🇮🇳 $150 million funding for animal protein marketplace Licious. Amansa Capital, Kotak PE, and Axis Growth Avenues AIF – I led the round, an extension of the e-commerce startup’s $52 million Series F announced last year. (TechCrunch)

🇺🇸 Bear Robotics announces $81 million Series B. IMM led the round, which brings the restaurant robotics startup’s total funding so far to $117 million. (The Spoon)

🇺🇸 Organic infant formula company Bobbie raises $50 million. Park West led the Series B round. Bobbie claims to be “the first and only infant formula made with grass-fed milk from pasture-raised cows” in the US. (Bobbie)

🇺🇸 Mori secures $50 million in ‘Series B1’ funding. The Boston-based startup has developed a process that extracts natural silk protein which can be used to extend the shelf life of fresh produce. Prelude Ventures led the round. (Mori)

🇦🇷🇺🇸 Stämm raises $17 million Series A capital. Founded in Buenos Aires and headquartered in San Francisco, Stämm is building ‘desktop’ bioreactors for use in multiple industries – including cultivated meat production. (Stämm)

🇮🇱 Alt-seafood startup Plantish closes $12.5 million seed round led by State of Mind Ventures. The company plans to scale up production of its whole-cut plant-based salmon fillets and be in restaurants by 2023. (Food Navigator)

🇺🇸 Lowercarbon Capital leads $12 million seed round for Tender Food. The startup formerly known as Boston Meats employs “cotton-candy machine” technology to make plant- and cell-based meat analogs. (AFN)

🇺🇸 Restaurant fintech platform Zitti raises $4 million. Crossbeam led the round that will grow the Zitti team and boost its tech capabilities. (Zitti)

🇭🇰 Plant-based pork maker Good Food closes HK$12 million ($1.5 million) seed round. It is lead investor Gobi Partners‘ first-ever bet on alt-protein. (Green Queen)

🇳🇱 Clear nabs €1 million ($1.3 million) funding. Agrifood VC Future Food Fund, Rabobank, and several angel investors backed the personalized nutrition app for people with diabetes. (Future Food Fund)

Agtech startup funding

🇮🇱 Irrigation tech startup SupPlant raises $27 million round led by Red Dot Capital Partners. Menomadin Foundation, Smart-Agro Fund, Mivtach Shamir, Deshpande Foundation, PBFS and Maor Investments also participated. (AFN)

🇺🇸 Lewis & Clark AgriFood lead $24 million Series B for IUNU. The startup makes computer vision and AI solutions for controlled environment agriculture (CEA) and will use the new funds for product development and hiring. (AFN) 

🇺🇸 Farm crowdfunding platform AcreTrader raises $20 million-plus from Drive Capital. The capital comes as an extension of AcreTrader’s Series B round, which reeled in $40 million from lead investor Anthemis Group and others in January. (AcreTrader)

🇨🇳 ‘Smart’ farm equipment startup AIForceTech secures $15 million in new funding. China Creation Ventures led the ‘Series A-plus’ round. (Nikkei Asia)

🇬🇧 Agritech AI specialist Agxio bags £2.1 million ($2.77 million) for pre-Series A round. The startup, which is backed by the Development Bank of Wales among others, said it’ll use the funding to make hires, expand, and continue developing its technology. (Agxio)

🇺🇸 Virtual fencing startup Vence lands funding from Merck & Co, Shell. Vence works with ranchers using regenerative ag practices and will scale its offering thanks to the investment. (AFN)

🇳🇱 CEA startup Future Crops raises undisclosed funding led by Chinese tech giant Tencent. New capital will be used for R&D, hiring, and building new farms, among other things. (AFN)

M&A, IPOs & partnerships

🇺🇸 Ancillary cannabis grow firm Agrify raises $135 million in additional capital. The publicly-traded company, which produces hardware and software for cannabis cultivation, signed a definitive agreement to raise as much as $135 million in a debt financing deal. (MJBiz)

🇺🇸 Publicly traded greenhouse grower Local Bounti to acquire Pete’s for $123 million. California-based Pete’s operates three greenhouses that serve about 10,000 retail locations across the US and Canada. (FreshPlaza)

🇮🇳 Food delivery service Zomato and instant delivery startup Blinkit to merge. Sources familiar with the matter say the all-stock deal values Blinkit between $700 million and $750 million. (TechCrunch)

Meanwhile, Zomato acquired a 16.7% stake in robotics startup Mukunda Foods. It invested $5 million in Mukunda, which designs and manufactures robotic equipment to automate food preparation for restaurants. (Economic Times)

Other news

🇬🇧 Social impact investor AgDevCo secures $90 million in new funding from development finance institutions CDC Group, Norfund, and DFC. The capital will be used to help small and mid-size African agribusinesses with R&D, tech innovation, and sustainability initiatives. (AFN)

🇦🇺 Temasek and Equilibrium Capital invest in fresh produce business Perfection Fresh. The undisclosed sum will allow the Australian company to expand into Asia and other international markets. (Perfection Fresh)

🇿🇦 Africa’s first cell-ag startup Mzansi Meat produces cultivated beef burger. The South African company will scale production “as soon as possible” and develop additional products such as sausages, nuggets, steaks, and chicken. (IOL)

🇺🇸 Delta Airlines brings plant-based meat to in-flight menus. Passengers on select flights will be able to eat items from Impossible Foods and Black Sheep Foods, as well as some locally-sourced produce [disclosure: AFN‘s parent company, AgFunder, is an investor in Black Sheep Foods.] (VegNews)

🇸🇬🇩🇰 ‘World’s best restaurant’ Noma considers expansion to Asia. The famed Danish restaurant is in talks with Singapore billionaire Peter Lim to explore business opportunities around the city-state and elsewhere on the continent. (Forbes)

🇺🇸 Nature’s Fynd to debut fungal “meat” at Whole Foods stores. The company uses fermentation tech to grow its Fy protein from volcanic microbes. (Nature’s Fynd)

🇺🇸 Vertical farming firms Plenty and Bowery double-down on strawberries. Plenty is building a strawberry farm with shareholder Driscoll’s, while Bowery just released retail “tasting packs” of its strawberries. (AFN)

🇺🇸 Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research and Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition launch competition to find new ingredients in underutilized crops. The pair will award up to $1,375,000 for predictive crop models. (FFAR)

🌏 Coalition of cultivated meat startups form Asia-Pacific Society for Cellular Agriculture to “kick-start and harmonise” cell ag in the region. The group has 11 founding members 11 founding members from companies including Shiok Meats, CellX, DanaGreen, Aleph Farms, and Avant Meats. (Vegconomist)