This week, Prime Roots raised funding for its mycelium-based take on deli meats and GoodLeaf Farms raked in funding to expand across Canada. Elsewhere, restaurant-tech startup Incentivio scored new funding, a South African bank took a stake in agtech, and one food delivery startup says it’s reached profitability.
Foodtech funding
🇺🇸 Prime Roots raises $30 million Series B to expand availability of its mycelium-based deli “meats.” Monde Nissin, SOSV/IndieBio & others participated in the round. (Food Dive)
🇺🇸 Restaurant tech Incentivio raises $10 million for digital ordering & loyalty platform. Osage Venture Partners led the Series A round. (Restaurant Business Online)
🇦🇹 Biotech startup Fermify secures $5 million for its precision fermentation platform for alt-dairy. Dörte Hirschberg from Article 9 climate tech fund Climentum Capital led the round. (Vegconomist)
🇺🇸 Miso Robotics gets “multi-million dollar” investment from water hygiene leader Ecolab. The two will work together on enhancing food safety and hygiene in the foodservice industry. (PR Newswire)
Agtech funding
🇨🇦 GoodLeaf Farms secures CAD$78 million ($58 million) from CIBC and Farm Credit Canada. The debt-financing round will support GoodLeaf Farms’ expansion across Canada. (Vertical Farm Daily)
🇬🇧 Plant biotech startup Resurrect Bio closes £1.61 million ($2 million) seed round. SynBioVen led the round with participation from AgFunder & others. (AFN)
🇳🇬 Figorr lands $1.5 million seed round led by Atlantica Ventures. Figorr will roll out a proprietary risk management platform for perishable goods like food and pharmaceuticals. (FinSMEs)
🇨🇦 Carbonhound raises CAD $1.3 million ($966,000) to help SMBs manage greenhouse gas regulations. Verdexus, Highline Beta and others participated in the round. (Betakit)
🇩🇪 German-American startup ingarden closes €500,000 ($538,000) round to expand its microgreens subscription business. Leading European D2C startup founders, including Delivery Hero’s co-founder, participated. (Vertical Farm Daily)
🇭🇺 Precision ag platform Proofminder secures €400,000 ($430,000). Impact Ventures led the round, which Proofminder will use to scale up. (iGrow News)
M&A, IPOs & partnerships
🇿🇦 Absa Bank acquires minority stake in agribusiness marketplace platform Khula! The two have worked together since 2018 on standardizing and digitizing agriculture in South Africa. (African Farming)
🇺🇸 Syngenta Crop Protection and FMC Corporation partner on new tech to control grass weeds in rice. The new active ingredient Tetflupyrolimet offers season-long control of the most significant grass weeds. (Business Wire)
🇺🇸 Pairwise & the Performance Food Group partner to bring CRISPR salads to restaurants. Gene-edited leafy greens are the first product in the new Pairwise “Conscious Greens” line. (WRAL Tech Wire)
🇺🇸 ADM has entered a strategic development agreement with microbial fermentation startup Air Protein. The two aim to “scale cost-effective ingredients” for meat substitutes. (AFN)
🇯🇵 🇸🇬 Dairy company Megmilk Snow Brand Co teams with pulses trader Agrocorp International. The companies will form a joint venture to manufacture plant-based ingredients. (AFN)
Other news
🇮🇳 Swiggy says its food delivery business is profitable. The milestone is also one for the entire food delivery sector, which has struggled with profitability. (Economic Times)
🇺🇸 Agrifood veteran David Lee launches B2B agtech startup Inevitable Tech. The new company offers a proprietary hardware-software grow system for use in both controlled environment agriculture (CEA) settings and open fields.
🇸🇬 Next Gen Foods brand TiNDLE unveils TiNDLE TruCut platform. The new platform uses plant-based ingredients “to mirror what fat content and muscle tissue does in poultry chicken.” (PR Newswire)
🇺🇸 Truterra pays more than $9 million to farmers for sequestering 462,000 metric tons of carbon. Truterra says its carbon program grew more than 27% in 2022 versus 2021. (The Packer)
🇺🇸 Plenty official opens Compton, California vertical farm. The company’s first commercial farm, the new facility is designed to grow 4.5 million pounds of leafy greens annually. (Horti Daily)
🇺🇸 QSR chain Wendy’s to close down remaining delivery-only Reef units. The move comes amid a general pullback from ghost kitchens in the restaurant industry. (Restaurant Dive)
🇺🇸 High-tech greenhouse grower AppHarvest could run out of money as soon as October. The company also halted production at a facility due to the presence of Listeria monocytogenes. (AFN)
🇪🇺 European Parliament proposes ban on green claims based solely on carbon offsetting. The “Directive on Green Claims” lays out new rules to make such claims by companies less misleading. (ESG Today)
