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The Week in Agrifoodtech: Funds worth $300m+ launch in Europe, South America

October 6, 2021

The last seven days saw major agrifoodtech funds launched in Europe and South America, with well over $300 million to deploy between them; while cow-less dairy dreamers Perfect Day raised a moo-assive $350 million with a potential IPO in sight.

Funds & accelerators

🇫🇷 Five Seasons Ventures closes €180 million ($208 million) impact fund focused on foodtech. The new Fund II will make Series A and B investments, mainly in consumer-facing businesses, with a quantifiable environmental or social impact. It has already backed Barkyn, her1, The Nu Company, and vly. (Five Seasons Ventures)

🇪🇸 Agrifoodtech accelerator Eatable Adventures launches €50 million ($57.7 million) first fund. Eatable Evolution Fund FCR I will target early and growth-stage startups across Europe and Latin America. It’s reportedly the biggest fund of its kind in Spain and among the three largest in Europe. (Private Equity Wire)

🇧🇷 SP Ventures has closes its latest fund on $41.5 million. The fourth close adds Banco do Brasil, one of the largest financial institutions in the country with 50% of the credit and insurance market in the region. Banco do Brasil Seguridade, a holding company in the insurance space, and Norwegian fertilizer company Yara have also backed the agrifoodtech fund. (AFN)

🇸🇬🇦🇺 GROW, Food Futures Co, and Austrade select eight startups for new internationalization program. GROW2Asia will help the eight Australian companies validate their market fit and co-develop a roadmap to establish their presence in Asia. (GROW)

Alt-protein

🇺🇸 Alt-dairy startup Perfect Day has raised $350 million in Series D funding. Singaporean sovereign fund Temasek and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board co-led the round. Other Series D investors included Disney executive chairman Robert Iger. Reports also indicate that the startup is preparing for an IPO within the next 12 months. (AFN)

🇺🇸 Clara Foods rebrands to The Every Company, launches animal-free egg white. The startup’s ClearEgg protein is odorless, tasteless, and soluble – and is now available to buy to for addition to foods, beverages, and other products. (The Every Company)

🇸🇬 Next Gen Foods names former Tesla and Impossible Foods exec Rachel Konrad as its first independent board member. The company says its first product, TiNDLE plant-based chicken, contains no antibiotics, hormones, cholesterol, or genetically modified ingredients. (Next Gen Foods)

🇭🇰🇸🇬 Hong Kong’s Avant plans pilot production facility for cultivated fish cells in Singapore. The plant, which will start running next year, will also include a research laboratory in partnership with the city-state’s Agency for Science, Technology and Research. (The Straits Times)

🇲🇾 Homecooked food delivery portal Hometaste raises 2.41 million ringgit ($576,000) from crowdfunding campaign. The Kuala Lumpur-based startup now plans to incubate home cooks into “F&B homepreneurs” by providing them with tech and support. (Vulcan Post)

Indoor farming

🇰🇷 N.Thing closes out its Series B round at $26 million, following a $21 million tranche. The Seoul-based startup has developed a modular, container-based vertical farming system called CUBE – along with the software to run it, CUBE OS. (AFN)

Regenerative ag, soil & carbon

🇺🇸 Mars has set a new “science-based” target to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions across its full value chain by 2050. The new target builds on Mars’ earlier plan to cut full value chain emissions by 67% by 2050. (AFN)

🇺🇸 McDonald’s has joined the UN Race to Zero campaign. The world’s largest fast food chain will work with the Science Based Targets Initiative to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. Race to Zero has more than 6,000 members and represents over 15% of the global economy and 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions. (AFN)

Digital ag

🇬🇧 Yagro joins Frontier Agriculture. The UK startup which connects farmers to their suppliers has become a member of the Frontier group, which offers a number of crop management and grain marketing services. (Yagro)

🇬🇧 Outfield raises £750,000 ($1.02 million) for its fruit-growing tech. Already used in three countries, Outfield employs off-the-shelf drones and machine learning to help growers manage orchards while reducing fruit loss, which can claim up to 20% of produce. (Fresh Produce Journal)

🇺🇸BeeHero raises $19 million Series A round for pollination tech. With millions of dollars in revenues since launch, BeeHero says it’s the 4th largest pollination provider in the US through its network of simultaneously monitored hives over tens of thousands of acres. ADM Capital’s Cibus Enterprise Fund and Rabo Food and Agri Innovation Fund invested alongside a long list of other funds and angels. (TechCrunch)

Fintech

🇺🇸 Stable raises $46.5 million in Series A round led by Greycroft. The startup is offering farmers a way to purchase insurance to protect themselves from unpredictable volatility in commodity pricing. So far, the startup is on track to reach $500 million of annual premium within three years of launch. (TechCrunch)

🇮🇳 Indian rural insurance startup GramCover raises $7 million. Launched in 2018, the Noida-based startup is using an online-to-offline paradigm to make insurance more accessible for farmers and their communities across rural India. (AFN)

Aquaculture

🇸🇬 Black soldier fly meal outperforms traditional shrimp feed, study suggests. Including 6.6% black soldier fly meal in a fishmeal-based diet led to 14% increased survival rate, 17% higher live yield, and an improved feed conversion rate of 20%, according to research commissioned by insect protein startup Nutrition Technologies. (Nutrition Technologies)

Supply chain, logistics & retail

🇺🇸 All Day Kitchens secures $65 million Series C funding. Lightspeed led the round with participation from GIC, Andreessen HorowitzFounders FundKhosla Ventures, Base10, and Tishman Speyer. The cloud kitchen operator said it will use the capital for R&D, hires, and market expansion. (All Day Kitchens)

🇮🇳 Licious raises $52 million funding, joins unicorn club. The online meat and seafood delivery portal round secured the funding in a Series G round led by IIFL Asset Management. The funding reportedly makes Licious the first D2C startup in India to hit a valuation of over $1 billion. (The Times of India)

🇺🇸🇮🇳 Dairy.com acquires Indian counterpart Mr Milkman for undisclosed sum. The US company, which cliams to be the country’s largest dairy supply chain technology provider, has acquired 100% of the Indian dairy industry software platform. (The Economic Times)

🇺🇸 Kitchen United acquires fellow ghost kitchen operator Zuul. Kitchen United, which operates six locations across the US, will enter the New York market through the deal. Financial details were not disclosed. (Kitchen United)

🇪🇸 Katoo nets €6.2 million ($7.17 million). The round was led by K Fund, with Expa, FJ Labs, Soma Capital, Shilling Founders Fund, GFC, and Otium Capital also participating. Madrid-based Katoo aims to digitalize multiple food supply chain processes, solve merchant cash flow issues through financing, and predicting restaurant stock needs by integrating with point-of-sale systems. (EU-Startups)

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