The Week in AgriFoodTech: Oatly raises $425m, Cocoon Bioscience bags $16 million to turn moths into bioreactors

This week, loss-making Oatly raised $425m as it “moves towards reaching financial self-sufficiency,” Cocoon Bioscience bagged $16 million to turn moths into bioreactors, and Klimato secured €4.2 million ($4.5 million) to expand its platform to help restaurants report the carbon footprints of their cuisine.

Agtech funding

🇨🇭 Wingtra bags $22 million in a series B round to expand production of its mapping drones that can be used to detect crop health problems early on, enabling farmers to reduce input costs and boost yields. (TechCrunch)

🇺🇸 The US government’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) has announced $9.4 million in grants for research, education, and extension work to solve challenges in urban, indoor, and emerging agricultural systems. (Vertical Farm Daily)

🇦🇺 Invest Inya Farmer (IIF) secures $1.1 million in seed capital to launch a new asset class via an app allowing consumers to invest in anything from a hectare of black rice to a single beehive and see a return if and when the goods are sold. (Business News Australia)

🇬🇧 Harvest London lands an undisclosed sum from Foresight Group to build out a 140,000 sq ft vertical farm in Beddington, London, adding to its existing sites in Walthamstow and Leyton. (HortiDaily)

🇺🇾 Uruguayan startup The Climate Box raises $350,000 in a pre-seed round led by The Yield Lab to expand its frost risk management platform. (LatamList)

Foodtech funding

🇸🇪 Oatly nets $425 million, with $125m via a guaranteed term loan B credit agreement and the sale of $300 million in convertible notes to provide liquidity as the loss-making oat milk maker “moves towards reaching financial self-sufficiency.” (Oatly)

🇪🇸 Cocoon Bioscience closes a $16 million round to turn moths into bioreactors to make recombinant proteins for cultivated meat growth media. The cash will be used to scale its business and build out production facilities in Spain. (AFN)

🇦🇺 Provectus Algae secures a strategic investment from CJ Bio, part of Korean biomanufacturing giant CJ CheilJedang, to expand its ‘carbon negative’ biomanufacturing ingredients platform. (AFN)

🇸🇪 Klimato bags €4.2 million ($4.5 million) to expand its platform to help restaurants and foodservice providers calculate, communicate and report the carbon footprint per dish. (Global Cleantech Capital)

🇳🇱 OneThird secures $3 million in late seed funding led by Dutch impact investor ​​Pymwymic to build out its AI-powered scanners allowing growers, distributors, retailers and consumers to predict the shelf life of fresh produce. (Finsmes)

🇮🇱 PoLoPo nets $1.75 million in a pre-seed funding round led by led by FoodLabs to expand is molecular farming operation, growing animal proteins such as ovalbumin in potatoes. (GreenQueen)

🇬🇧 Oja raises a pre-seed extension round led by VC firm LocalGlobe and supported by England soccer star Raheem Sterling. The cash injection will help expand its online supermarket operation selling African and Caribbean groceries. (UKTN)

M&A, IPOs & partnerships

🇸🇪 Swedish online grocer Mathem acquires local competitor Kavall for an undisclosed sum to strengthen its position in ecommerce and fast delivery of groceries. Kavall’s operations will continue under the Mathem Express brand. (Arctic Startup)

🇮🇳  MITRA, an Indian manufacturer of fruit spraying equipment, is acquired by automotive manufacturer Mahindra & Mahindra.  Sources close to the deal say MITRA was valued at around $20 million. (AFN)

Other news

🇺🇸 The Biden Administration sets goals for US biotech and biomanufacturing in a new report exploring how to harness these technologies to develop climate change solutions, food and ag innovation, supply chain resilience, and human health. (The White House)

🇺🇸 Fork & Good has opened a pilot plant making cultivated pork in Jersey City. (Food Business News)

🇪🇺 The European Commission unveils a proposal for a directive that introduces minimum requirements on substantiation and communication of environmental claims.(European Commission)

🇺🇸 GOOD Meat, the cultivated meat division of Eat Just, gets a green light from FDA for its cultivated chicken, edging closer to commercialization in the US. (AFN)

🇺🇸 Merge Impact teams up with soil data measurement and mapping company EarthOptics to measure soil carbon sequestration at the field level. (Global Newswire)

🇺🇸 Miyoko Schinner files a countersuit vs Miyoko’s Creamery, the company she founded, says ‘mansplaining’ male execs made it ‘impossible for her to effectively do her job.’ (AFN)

🇬🇧 Food delivery firm Just Eat cuts 1,700 courier jobs and 170 head office staff after a 9% drop in customer numbers last year, and is switching to a self-employed ‘gig worker’ model in Britain. (Reuters)

🇺🇸 Just 1% of US farmers have signed contracts to dedicate land to carbon farming, according to the latest Ag Economy Barometer from Purdue University’s Center for Commercial Ag. (AFN)

🇦🇹 Oatly teams up with McDonald‘s to bring its oatmilk to McDonald’s McCafé locations across Austria. (Oatly)

🇬🇧 SWEN Capital Partners, closes its Blue Ocean Fund. The Fund has now reached €170 million ($182 million), exceeding its stated target of €120 million ($129 million). (SWEN)

🇺🇸 Vertical Farm co Upward Farms will lay off 78 employees and close on June 15, according to a layoff notice filed with New York state. In addition to producing microgreens, the Brooklyn facility also raises a type of striped bass. (Crains)