The AFN team took a bit of a break during the festive season, so today’s agrifoodtech news roundup covers the top headlines from the past few weeks.
Foodtech funding continued apace throughout the holidays, with B2B surplus food marketplace Full Harvest and cultivated meat startup Future Meat among the largest rounds raised. In agtech, real-time soil sensing company Stenon raised $20 million and John Deere showed off its first commercially-available autonomous tractor.
Foodtech startup funding
🇮🇱🇺🇸 Future Meat raises $347 million in record cultivated meat funding. ADM and Tyson Foods, among others, participated in the Series B round. Future Meat will use the proceeds to construct a US-based production facility. (AFN)
🇺🇸 Full Harvest secures $23 million in Telus-led round. B2B surplus food platform Full Harvest will use the funding to further build out its online marketplace and grow its tech and product teams. (Food Navigator)
🇮🇳 Logistics platform Ripplr raises $12 million. Japan’s Sojitz Corporation, Stride Ventures, and existing investors participated in the pre-Series B funding round. (YourStory)
🇮🇳 Eggoz raises $3.5 million in Series A funding. The startup, which helps farmers sell eggs direct to consumers, will use the capital to launch new products and enter new geographies. (The Hindu Business Line)
🇩🇪🇪🇸 Delivery Hero invests in Glovo. The German company said it has acquired a 39.4% stake in the Spanish on-demand food delivery startup. (Reuters)
🇨🇦 Provision Analytics raises $4.75 million. The round proceeds will go towards further development of Provision’s software platform that simplifies food safety audits. (Provision Analytics)
🇰🇷 DaNAgreen bags $6.7 million in Series A funding. The cultivated meat company says it has already created a cost-effective, plant-based scaffolding system and is aiming for commercialization by 2024. (Green Queen)
Agtech startup funding
🇩🇪 Real-time soil-sensing company Stenon raises $20 million. Founders Fund, David Friedberg’s The Production Board, and existing investors including Cherry Ventures and Atlantic Labs participated in the round. (TechCrunch)
🇮🇩 Arise and Wavemaker Partners co-lead undisclosed round for Pitik. The capital will accelerate product development for Pitik’s poultry farm management platform. (Tech in Asia)
🇱🇹 HeavyFinance hauls in $1 million for pre-seed round. Black Pearls VC led the round for the company, which connects struggling farmers with short- to medium-term financing. (Baltic Times)
🇨🇦 Indoor farm brokerage Cultivatd closes $3 million funding. The Series A round will enable Cultivatd to expand, with plans for new offices in the US, the UAE, and Australia in 2022. (Horti Daily)
M&A, IPOs & partnerships
🇫🇮🇸🇪 Finland’s Fazer Group to acquire Swedish oat milk company Trensums Food . The deal will increase Fazer’s share of the European market for plant-based foods and enable it to expand to new markets. (Vegconomist)
🇨🇦🇺🇸 Online plant-based marketplace Vejii acquires plant-based wholesale supplier VEDGEco for $6.2 million. The deal is expected to improve purchasing, customer service, technology, and logistics for both companies. (Vejii)
Other news
🇺🇸 John Deere unveils its first commercially available, fully autonomous tractor at CES 2022. The US farm equipment manufacturer will begin shipping the driverless version of its 8R row crop tractor during the second half of the year. (AFN)
🇺🇸 Beyond Meat adds two Tyson vets. Longtime Tyson employees Doug Ramsey and Bernie Adcock join the plant-based meat company as chief operating officer and chief supply chain officer, respectively. (Food Dive)
🇺🇸🇫🇷 InnovaFeed to build the world’s largest insect farm in the US. The French biotech company’s forthcoming plant will produce black soldier flies on an industrial scale and will be located next to ADM’s corn processing plant in Decatur, Illinois. (The Telegraph)
🇺🇸 New US label for GMO food now in effect. Food products in the US that are bioengineered or contain bioengineered ingredients now must be labeled as such, in keeping with the US Department of Agriculture’s new rules. (Horti Daily)
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