The largest round this week went to India’s SAEL, a company converting agricultural waste into renewable energy. Other notable fundraises went to precision fermentation, AI imaging for agriculture, restaurant tech in Latin America, and cultivated seafood. Coffee-focused startups in Spain also raised funds, while over in the US, California stuck a ban on four food ingredients.
Foodtech funding
🇺🇸 BlueNalu snags $33.5 million in a series B round from “new and existing investors.” The company is currently scaling up to produce sufficient quantities of cultivated fish for a small-scale launch. (AgFunderNews)
🇫🇷 Fermentation startup Bon Vivant raises $15.9 million for animal-free dairy protein. Sofinnova Partners and Sparkfood led the oversubscribed seed round. (TechCrunch)
🇪🇸 The Catalan government invests €7 million ($7.4 million) in Southern Europe alt-protein hub. The Center for Innovation in Alternative Proteins (CiPA) will help businesses with research and scaling. (Good Food Institute)
🇮🇱 Wanda Fish snags $7 million round led by Aqua-Spark. The funding will help accelerate production of Wanda Fish’ whole-cut cultivated blue-fin tuna prototype. (TechCrunch)
🇪🇸 Incapto closes €6 million ($6.4 million) round led by P101. New funds will help Incapto expand its specialty coffee subscription in Italy, France, and Portugal. (EU Startups)
🇧🇷 Restaurant management system Yooga raises $2.3 million seed round. SaaSholic led the round with participation from Gilgamesh, Apex Partners and others. (TechCrunch)
🇪🇸 Recycap Technologies lands €155,000 ($164,000) to speed up the coffee capsule recycling process. Spain’s National Innovation Company and Veos Ventures provided the funding. (AI Circle)
Agtech funding
🇮🇳 🇳🇴 Norfund‘s Norwegian Climate Investment Fund invests $60 million into SAEL. The latter converts agri-waste into renewable energy across Indian farms. (Norfund)
🇩🇪 Deeptech company Orbem lands €30 million ($32 million) for AI-powered imaging for agrifoodfood and medical sectors. 83North led the series A round. (Tech.eu)
🇵🇭 Kita raises $3 million for its ‘Farm to Business’ e-commerce platform. Gentree Fund and Altara Ventures co-led the seed round. (Tech in Asia)
🇮🇹 Aquaponics startup The Circle secures €2.1 million ($2.2 million). Opes Italia and Sparviero led the round, which will go towards building new production facilities. (Tech.eu)
🇪🇸 Hunty, an online platform for finding and hiring hunting officers, lands €1.2 million ($1.3 million). Behappy Investments, Asterius Ventures and others participated in the seed round. (EU Startups)
🇱🇹 Agrifintech startup HeavyFinance snags €1 million ($1 million) from Vinted cofounder. The funds will help deploy debt capital to small- and medium-sized farmers via HeavyFinance. (Silicon Canals)
🇺🇸 Pangea Ventures leads undisclosed Series A for Biodel Ag. The latter will use the funds to commercialize “novel solutions” for regenerative agriculture. (Global AgInvesting)
M&A, IPOs & partnerships
🇬🇧 VFC Foods acquires majority stake in fellow plant-based food company Clive’s Purely Plants. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. (Just Food)
🇨🇦 🇳🇱 Robotics company Mycionics and farm equipment company Christiaens Group team up on robotic mushroom harvesting. The tech can harvest 45 mushrooms per minute, according to the companies. (Horti Daily)
🇳🇱 Bright Green Partners launches “world’s largest” alt-protein expert network. The network will provide access to over 2,000 experts in plant-based, cultivated and fermentation-made alt-protein. (Vegconomist)
🇦🇺 Tempo Group acquires healthy snack brand Nourish from receivers. Nourish was placed into voluntary administration in in September. (Business News Australia)
Funds, grants & accelerators
🇧🇪 EU Horizon‘s DRG4Food accelerator launches first open call of €950,000 ($1 million). The accelerator will support three projects (up to €300,000 each) developing data sharing systems for agrifood. (The European Food Innovation Council)
Other news
🇺🇸 California Food Safety Act becomes law, banning four ingredients after Jan. 1, 2024. Brominated vegetable oil, potassium bromate, propyl paraben and Red Dye No. 3 are on the chopping block. (FoodNavigator)
🇺🇸 US Food and Drug Administration to hold public meeting about sugar consumption. The event will include presentations and strategies about reducing added sugars in Americans’ diets. (FDA)
🇮🇩 Aquaculture unicorn eFishery to expand commercial operations to India. The company will also start exporting tilapia to the US later this year. (Deal Street Asia)
🇺🇸 Meati Foods takes on snacking segment with plant-based jerky. The jerky is formulated with Meati’s MushroomRoot product made from fungi. (Food Business News)
🇺🇸 Gotham Greens opens 210,000 sq ft facility in the state of Georgia. It is the greenhouse company’s largest farm to date and its twelfth in the US. (The Packer)
🇺🇸 St. Louis collaborators launch Cultivar STL to boost food partnerships with Latin America. The initiative is led by the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, BioSTL, the Yield Lab LATAM and others. (BioSTL)
