“A lot of foodtech founders in this dry capital environment are beating their heads against the wall with the conviction that the wall will break before their heads do,” observes Paul Shapiro at The Better Meat Co. “That said, deals are still getting done.”
Spanish startup MOA Foodtech has built an AI-powered biomass fermentation platform to transform byproducts from the food industry into high value ingredients.
Food manufacturers have been looking for viable egg replacements for years as prices yo-yo with every avian flu outbreak, says Onego Bio.
Unsurprisingly, AI was top of mind for many founders, but it’s not the only thing on their list…
New research suggests that ultrafine bubbles can optimize fermentation processes by improving metabolic efficiency in microbial cells, says Hydrosome Labs.
Nourish Ingredients, an Australian startup creating novel fats via fermentation, has struck a deal with Chinese biomanufacturing co CABIO Biotech in which CABIO will manufacture Nourish’s first product Tastilux at commercial scale.
The “investment towards future partnership” will help transform the way cocoa is produced in a market where demand is expected to dramatically exceed supply in the coming years, claims the startup.
Helaina is targeting the women’s health, active nutrition and healthy aging markets, says founder and CEO Laura Katz.
Peter Rosholm plans to retain the US staff and invest a “substantial” sum to expand capacity, AgFunderNews has learned.
Existing single-cell suspension stir tank bioreactors “can’t be used to effectively produce non-GM, cultivated muscle and fat,” claims Mission Barns.
“We’re talking about building smaller, smarter facilities with a lot less capital,” says cofounder and CEO Michele Stansfield.
Producing high-value proteins from genetically engineered black soldier flies is cheaper and more scalable than expressing them in engineered microbes via precision fermentation, claims Chilean startup ByBug.
Prolific Machines has developed a novel way to control cells used in biomanufacturing by deploying light instead of pricey growth factors and other signaling molecules.
Enduro Genetics has agreements with ‘leading industry players in biomanufacturing that have fully recognized that if this works, this is a game changer,’ says CEO and ex-Novozymes exec Christian Munch.
Israeli startup Kokomodo has emerged from stealth armed with $750k from The Kitchen FoodTech Hub to produce cocoa via plant cell culture.
Ultrafine bubbles exhibit very different properties to bubbles perceptible to the human eye, from neutral buoyancy to a strong negative surface charge and a high surface area to volume ratio.
While there is a well-publicized lack of biomanufacturing capacity in the US, says Mark Warner, “What matters is whether the capacity is fit for purpose.”
Dyeing fabric is terrible for the environment, says Chui-Lian Lee. But what if you could create textiles with inherent color, and skip the dyeing step altogether?
What will it take to make the economics of precision fermentation stack up for a wider range of bioproducts such that they can compete with low-margin, high volume products derived from petrochemicals or industrialized animal agriculture?
The race is on to develop ‘designer’ fats for the next generation of food products. But will fats & oils produced by microbes in fermentation tanks ever be a scalable proposition?
