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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Chris Albrecht

Corona Vending Machine Only Dispenses a Drink if You Properly Order in Spanish

When it comes to automated alcohol vending, we’ve covered different ways machines could verify a person’s age, but we’ve never written about a machine that checks your Spanish pronunciation to unlock service. That’s exactly what a promotional vending machine from Corona does, asking users to properly ask for a Hard Seltzer Lemonada en español, before a can is dispensed.

Corona announced the pop-up vending machine on the Las Vegas strip last week (hat tip to AdAge). According to the press announcement, the machine asked consumers to order their drink in Spanish by saying “Dame una Corona Hard Seltzer Limonada, por favor.” The machine listens to the pronunciation and if correct (the company didn’t specify what technology is being used to determine proper pronunciation), it dispenses a sample can of the drink. If the pronunciation is incorrect, users are given a one-month subscription to the language learning app Duolingo.

This caught our eye here at The Spoon because we love smart vending machines and are curious whenever one is doing something a little different. Whether or not the idea of using free alcohol to encourage proper pronunciation of another language is a good idea is a subject for a different blog post. But the idea of a machine listening to a customer talk and dispensing drinks based on pronunciation is intriguing, to say the least.

Over the course of this year, we’ve covered a bunch of beer-pouring robots whose main job is to pump out pint after pint after pint for large crowds. But could voice recognition be used to slow down drink service? I’m not an engineer, but there is probably a way for a smart vending machine to recognize slurred words or other indications of overservice and deny drink dispensing. That would obviously require a lot of work and validation, but as we see more unattended vending machines pop up, they will need an assortment of tools to make sure they are service drinks responsibly.

Estonia: Ride Hailing Startup Bolt Raises €600M to Get Into Grocer Delivery

Bolt, an Uber-like rideshare company based in Estonia, has raised €600 million (~$713M USD) to branch out into grocery delivery, CNBC reported today. New investors in the round include Sequoia and fund managers Tekne and Ghisallo, along with existing investors G Squared, D1 Capital and Naya. With its new funding, Bolt is now valued at roughly $4.75 billion.

Just like Uber, Bolt saw its ride hailing business decimated by the pandemic last year. Bolt told CNBC that while its ride hailing business has recovered, the company has seen dramatic growth in its grocery delivery business. The company operates 15-minute grocery delivery and has plans to roll the service out to 10 more European countries including Sweden, Portugal and Croatia over the next few months.

But as it does expand its grocery delivery footprint, Bolt will be facing a fiercely competitive, well-funded landscape. Europe in particular has been a hot spot for grocery delivery this past year, with a number of startups bulking up their warchests with hundreds of millions in new funding. Spanish startup Glovo has raised $1.2 billion, Turkey-based Getir has raised $1 billion, Czech-based Rohlik has raised $402 million, and Germany-based Flink has raised $304 million.

The big question now looming for all these services is whether they can economically scale, a matter complicated by the fact that services such as 15-minute grocery delivery are fast becoming a commodity. If there are half a dozen speedy grocery delivery services in a city, customers will likely gravitate towards the cheapest option. This race to the bottom is driving some speedy grocery delivery services here in the U.S. to diversify more into ghost kitchens and private label ready-to-eat meals.

It’s also worth noting that here in the U.S., Uber is investing more heavily in the grocery delivery space. The company recently acquired the remaining 47 percent of grocery delivery startup Cornershop, and partnered with Albertsons to offer grocery delivery in 400 U.S. cities.

Japan: Next Meats Announces New Alternative Protein Production Facility

Tokyo-based Next Meats Co. announced today their plan to start construction of their alternative protein “NEXT Factory” in Niigata, Japan. The new, large-scale facility will be dedicated to the development of alternative proteins, feature both and R&D lab as well as a production line, and is scheduled to be completed next summer.

Next Meats makes plant-based meat analogues such as its Yakiniku Short Rib and NEXT Gyudon vegan traditional Japanese beef bowl. More recently, the company announced a newly developed plant-based egg product dubbed NEXT EGG 1.0, which is initially being offered as a B2B ingredient.

In addition to developing its own products, the NEXT Factory will also co-produce a new product with Kameda Saika, a prominent snack manufacturer in Japan, and Next Meats has also signed a research and development agreement with Nagaoka University of Technology to look into epigenetic applications in creating new alternative meat products.

This announcement marks the latest production facility to open up from an alternative protein company, signaling a continued maturation of the space. Companies across the alt protein space have started work on or opened such production factories including cultured meat company Future Meat, mycoprotein company Better Meat, and protein-from-air company Air Protein.

Obviously, a key benefit of having mass production facilities is that they can produce more alternative protein products at scale, thereby reducing their costs and making them more available to consumers around the world.

Fittingly, in addition to producing plant-based meat, Next Meat’s new factory will also be eco-friendly using DX cooling systems, solar panels and locally-sourced building materials. And in a nice touch, the facility is being built in the hometown of Next Meats co-founder Ryo Shirai, who said he wanted to give back to his community.

Gopuff Confirms Latest $1B Funding Round

Gopuff announced today that it has raised another $1 billion in funding, confirming reports from last week of just such a round. New investors Blackstone’s Horizon platform, Guggenheim Investments, Hedosophia, MSD Partners, and Adage Capital joined with existing investors Fidelity Management and Research Company, Softbank Vision Fund 1, Atreides Management, and Eldridge in the round.

The new money comes just months after Gopuff raised $1.5 billion, in March of this year. With this new haul, Gopuff has now raised $3.4 billion in total and has a $15 billion valuation.

According to a press announcement emailed to The Spoon, Gopuff will use the new money fuel its geographic expansion across North America and further into the UK and Europe. Gopuff currently operates 450 facilities operating in more than 850 cities across the U.S.

Here in the U.S., Gopuff’s massive fundraising this year far surpasses the comparatively paltry sums raised by its speedy grocery delivery competition. JOKR is a distant second with $170 million, Fridge No More raised $15.4 million, Food Rocket raised $2 million and 1520 has raised an undisclosed seed round.

Gopuff will face more stiff competition as they spread across Europe. The speedy grocery delivery scene there is a little more mature — and better funded than their U.S. counterparts. Spain-based Glovo has raised $1.2 billion, Turkey-based Getir raised $1 billion, and Germany-based Gorillas has raised $335.4 million. (Side note: if you want to raise funding for you speedy grocery delivery startup, start your company name with the letter “G.”) And that doesn’t include all the other players like Flink, Weezy, and Jiffy.

But Gopuff isn’t just expanding its footprint. The company is also branchig beyond straight up grocery delivery and into pre-made meals. Gopuff officially launched Gopuff Kitchen last week, and is already serving hot pizza, chicken tenders, salads, coffees and more in cities like Austin, Miami, Nashville, Philadelphia, Phoenix, and San Antonio.

The speedy grocery delivery started in earnest this year. And with $2.5 billion raised in the past six months, Gopuff has armed itself to try and finish them.

Food Robots + Speedy Grocery Delivery = A Whole New Kind of Virtual Restaurant

One thing is becoming clear as all these speedy grocery delivery startups pop up, proliferate and pile on the funding: All this activity isn’t just about getting you groceries. Increasingly, it’s about getting you lunch and dinner.

Already we’ve seen 1520 expand into creating their own line of meals available for delivery. Gopuff is in the midst of a huge expansion into ghost kitchens. Food Rocket is also leaning more heavily on ready-to-eat meals, and is adding its own ghost kitchens.

However, I think the most interesting play in this space is coming from DoorDash, which is not a speedy grocery delivery service. Even so, DoorDash does have it’s own DashMart delivery-only convenience stores, and it also acquired robot startup Chowbotics earlier this year. As HNGRY recently reported, DoorDash is now testing Chowbotics’s Sally robot to make private label salads and microwaveable meals to be sold at DashMarts. This is a smart idea.

The whole point of speedy grocery delivery services like Gorillas and JOKR is that they will get you your food fast. With Chowbotics’ Sally, DashMart can offer a menu of salads, yogurt parfaits, or even grain bowl-style food, all of which can be dispensed quickly. Even better, the meal can be customized by the user and made on demand by the robot, so the store doesn’t have to order a bunch of packaged meals ahead of time, only to have them sit on shelves unsold.

The key factors at play here are speed and size. Fast delivery services need an automation solution that can prep a meal quickly, but it also has to be done in a space that’s pretty limited size-wise. Part of the reason these services like JOKR and Fridge No More believe they can economically scale is because they don’t need a lot of real estate to operate. These dark stores are typically around 2,000 – 2,500 sq. ft, so there isn’t a ton of room to house all the inventory and a lot of machinery. Part of the beauty of a Sally robot is that it’s only the size of a vending machine and could be plugged in just about anywhere.

Since Chowbotics is already owned by DoorDash, other speedy delivery will have to look elsewhere for any robo-solutions. Thankfully, there are a number of robot startups like Karakuri, Kitchen Robotics and RoboEatz that make standalone kiosks capable of assembling and cooking all kinds of hot and cold meals. Even better, because speedy delivery services typically operate on a hyper-local level, the ingredients and menus for any food robot could be customized for that neighborhood. Bonus: The delivery service can put all kinds of local order/deliver data to work to improve efficiencies — or add more services.

Adding more meal services wouldn’t even be that hard considering the advances in vending machine technology. A fast grocery service could deliver hot ramen from a Yo-Kai Express machine, or a pizza from a Piestro robot, or a boba tea from Bobacino.

Of course, robots ain’t cheap. DoorDash had the scratch to buy its own robotics company but these other services don’t. (Well, Gopuff’s second round of billion dollar funding could get it a few robots.) But there could be an opportunity if robots were paid for with revenue sharing. That way there’s little to no upfront cost for a delivery startup, and as the delivery service (ideally) grows and gets more use, robot companies could generate greater amounts of money.

Fast grocery delivery and food robotics are both very new ideas, and there might be some trepidation on both sides to partner with unproven ideas. But there could also be a peanut butter + chocolate type scenario where these two hot innovations help each other scale up fast.

More Headlines

Basil Street Using Equity Crowdfunding to Raise $20M for its Pizza Vending Machines – The company has thus far shunned traditional VC funding.

Air Protein Company NovoNutrients Raises $4.7 to Complete Its Pilot Program – NovoNutrients feeds the CO2 inputs it collects to naturally occurring microbes via a fermentation process. The resulting proteins have a variety of uses, including as ingredients in meat analogues as well as animal feeds.

DoorDash Expands Its Ghost Kitchen Operation in California – DoorDash Kitchens San Jose will house six different restaurant concepts from both nationally known restaurants and those from the San Francisco Bay Area.

ConverseNow Raises $15M for Restaurant AI Assistant Tech – The company says its assistants achieve an 85 percent order accuracy rate, and that they increase check size by 25 percent.

Basil Street Using Equity Crowdfunding to Raise $20M for its Pizza Vending Machines

Pizza vending machine company Basil Street announced this week that it is raising its Regulation A+ round of financing through equity crowdfunding. The company is looking to raise $20 million on the SeedInvest platform, where reservations to invest in Basil St. are currently open.

Basil Street makes what it calls Automated Pizza Kitchens (APK), which are standalone vending machines that serve up hot pizza. The APKs are roughly 20 sq. ft. and hold 150 frozen 10-inch, thin-crust pizzas. When a customer places an order via the touchscreen or mobile app, the APK heats the pizza up using a non-microwave oven that cooks the pies in about three minutes.

That Basil Street is choosing the crowdfunding route isn’t too surprising since the company has yet to take traditional VC funding. According to the prospectus on SeedInvest, Basil Street raised $3.5 million in a convertible note in 2018, followed by three tranches of a Series A round from private investors between Feb. 2020 and Jan. 2021, totaling $8.99 million.

In a video chat this week, I asked Basil Street Chairman and CEO Deglin Kenealy why he’s turning to the crowd for funding instead hitting up VCs. “When you have someone come along and write a big check. It’s too far an advantage for the check writer,” he replied.

But Kenealy also echoed a more intangible sentiment that we hear from other startups like Piestro and Blendid about going the equity crowdfunding route. “We’ll get 7,000 or so investors. Those people will become cheerleaders,” he said, “I’ve got people who are invested in the business and helping us drive it forward.”

Like others in the vending machine space, Basil Street is looking to place its machines in high-traffic areas such as military bases, hospitals, universities, and factories. Basil Street has been running pilot programs and Kenealy said the company is signing deals right now that will put 50 machines in the field this Fall.

During its pilot program, Kenealy said that the company has learned a bunch of information from actual customer interaction. One thing the company learned in particular was about menus. Kenealy said that when the machine is placed in a closed location like a factory, where the same people use the machine every day, menu rotation and adding new items (like a breakfast pizza) is important. But when a machine is in an open location like an airport, where lots of people come and go, menu items can pretty much stay the same.

While Basil Street is turning to the crowd to finance its future, the market itself is getting crowded with competitors. There are a number of pizza vending machines already at market or on their way including API Tech, PizzaForno, Bake Xpress and Piestro. But, given how many locations just in the U.S. alone where a pizza vending machine could work, there’s actually room for plenty of players.

Any investment carries with it risk, but for those interested in plunking down money to own a piece of Basil Street’s pie business, the share price will be $2.82, and the minimum investment is $998.

ConverseNow Raises $15M for Restaurant AI Assistant Tech

ConverseNow, which makes an AI ordering assistant for restaurants, announced today that it has rasied a $15 million Series A round of funding. The round was led by Craft Ventures with participation from existing investors including LiveOak Venture Partners, Tensility Venture Partners, Knoll Ventures, Bala Investments, 2048 Ventures and Bridge Investments. This brings the total amount of funding raised by ConverseNow to $18.3 million.

ConverseNow’s lead product is its voice-based assistants dubbed George and Becky. These automated assistants can understand and take orders from customers who simply say what they want as they pull up to a restaurant’s drive-thru. During a recent video chat, ConverseNow Founder and CEO Vinay Shukla told me that the company’s assistants are currently live at 750 restaurant locations, that they achieve an 85 percent order accuracy rate, and that they increase check size by 25 percent.

But ConverseNow is a much bigger play than simply automating the drive-thru. The company is developing a suite of tools to automate order-taking in many different restaurant scenarios. Shukla said he sees ConverseNow as like a Twilio for restaurants, providing one artificially intelligent glue that can power ordering via drive-thru, mobile app, phone, kiosk, etc.

Shukla told me that while ConverseNow can save on labor costs for a restaurant, it’s also being developed with the restaurant operator in mind. “Nobody is talking about the operator experience,” Shukla said, “[Customers] get frustrated, which is causing a lot of attrition. The experience for the operator at the store is not great.”

We have steadily been seeing more adoption of AI at QSRs over the past couple of years, especially in the drive-thru. A company called 5Thru is connecting license plates with customer profiles to provide order history as well as upsell recommendations (KFC was at one point considering adopting this type of service). Valyant AI is another startup that has implemented voice-based ordering for QSRs. More recently, last month McDonald’s said it was testing AI-based drive-thrus based on Apprente (which McDonald’s acquired in 2019) at 10 Chicago locations.

Shukla said it will use the new funding to further develop and scale up its products.

Small Robot Co. Raises Another £2M Through Equity Crowdfunding

Agtech startup Small Robot Company announced today that it has launched an equity crowdfunding campaign and already hit its goal of raising £2 million (~$2.77M USD). This is the fourth time Small Robot has turned to equity crowdfunding, where it has previously raised £4.3 million. This brings the total amount of funding raised by Small Robot to £9 million.

Small Robot Company uses a combination of robots and artificial intelligence to help automate certain agricultural needs. Small Robot’s products include the Tom, Dick and Harry robots. As we’ve covered previously:

  • Tom uses cameras and computer vision to precisely map a field of its plants and weeds
  • Wilma is the AI that analyzes those images to gather per-plant intelligence and weed identification
  • Dick is an autonomous weed zapper that is armed with an electric wand and information from Wilma to precisely electrocute individual weed without the need for chemicals
  • The company will eventually add a third robot, Harry, to its lineup that will do no-till drilling.

Equity crowdfunding has been a popular choice for robotics companies looking to raise money. Fellow agtech startup Future Acres, which makes a robotic platform that will initially be used to haul crops, launched its own crowdfunding campaign earlier this year. Other non-agtech robot startups equity crowdfunding include Piestro, Kiwibot, DaVinci Kitchen, Blendid and EBar.

Some of the benefits of equity crowdfunding include being able to raise money without the scaling pressures that come with traditional VC money, as well as building a diverse, enthusiastic community that can provide real world feedback and evangelize a product and campaign. For more, check out the video from a panel we devoted to equity crowdfunding at our recent ArticulATE food robotics conference in May (Spoon Plus subscription required).

UPDATE: A previous version of this post incorrectly stated Small Robot raised this funding through a private campaign plus a match with the U.K. Government. That particular money came through earlier financing. We regret the error.

Speedy Delivery Grocer 1520 Knows There’s a Lot of Competition (and Where that Competition is Headed Next)

The startup 1520 got its name from its value proposition — to deliver grocery orders to customers in 15 to 20 minutes. The company is not alone in that mission, especially in its hometown of New York City, where a number of fast grocery delivery services have launched this year. Two of those services have raised more than $100 million dollars each. But 1520 co-founders Oleg Shevlyagin and Moucheg Sahakian aren’t too worried about the competition, and have developed their own plan to stand apart from (and stay ahead of) other speedy delivery startups.

Before co-founding 1520, Shevlyagin and Sahakian both worked at Russian tech giant Yandex, where they launched the first three such speedy grocery stores for that company. The two brought that experience with them when they started 1520 in Manhattan in January of this year.

Like others in the space, 1520 operates a number of small, delivery-only grocery stores that carry a limited inventory and have a small delivery radius. The company now serves everything below 96th St. (for those New Yorkers who know what that means), and is eyeing expansion to Long Island City, Jersey City and Hoboken, New Jersey.

During a video chat with Shevlyagin and Sahakian this week, I asked them about the proliferating number of speedy delivery startups and what that means for 1520. “I don’t think that competition adds too much pressure,” Shevlyagin said, “You have 40 grocery chains in New York alone. We have four players in this ultra-fast space.”

Operationally speaking, Shevlyagin said that 1520 is different from other speedy delivery startups in a few ways. First, the company operates slightly smaller dark stores that are only 1,500 to 2,000 sq. feet, compared with the 2,500 to 3,000 sq. ft. stores other services run. Despite these smaller stores, 1520 has a slightly larger delivery radius than its competition. Most speedy services have a delivery radius between 1 and 1.5 miles. Shevlyagin said 1520’s delivery radius is between 2 and 2.5 miles.

This larger delivery radius in turn means more customers. As a comparison, fellow speedy delivery startup Food Rocket says that one of its stores serves 50,000 households, whereas one 1520 store services 90,000 households. It’s hard to say that bigger is better in this scenario. What you gain in footprint, you could lose in speed. Food Rocket delivers in 10 minutes, while 1520 is 15 to 20 minutes. That may not sound like much, but if you’re in the business of treating groceries like an on-demand utility, those extra minutes might cost you extra business.

But Shevlyagin also says 1520 is different from other speedy delivery startups in more existential ways, too. “GoPuff and DashMart are running [a] convenience store rather than full-blown grocery,” Shevlyagin said, “For them it would be more like you are running out of beer and snack. For us, it’s ‘I want to cook my dinner tonight.'”

As such, Shevlyagin said that 1520 is focused on high-quality fresh food and produce. “We do believe urban customers are more concerned about their health,” Shevlyagin said, “They want produce rather than chips and a Coke.” I’m not sure if that’s entirely true. I mean, who doesn’t love the idea of a late night pint of ice cream delivered to your door in minutes? But 1520 is certainly choosing a lane with its fresh food approach.

There are ways in which 1520 is very much like others in the rapidly evolving fast grocery delivery space. Similar to Food Rocket and DashMart, 1520 is moving into ready-to-eat meals, and will offer its own line of sandwiches, salads and microwaveable meals.

Unlike others in the space, 1520 has yet to raise a massive amount of funding. Germany-based Gorillas raised $290 million prior to its U.S. expansion, and New York City-based JOKR just raised $170 million to fuel its own growth.

Shevlyagin said that 1520 has so far raised a Seed round of funding. I asked him if his competition’s now-sizeable warchests were a big concern for him. Shevlyagin was rather matter-of-fact, saying, “As any other venture-backed startup, we will have to raise at some point, probably in the next two to six months.”

But the funding issue also matters as these companies look to expand and gain first-mover advantage in new cities, since there are only so many cities in the U.S. with dense enough populations to support speedy grocery. I asked Shevlyagin how 1520 will roll out to stay ahead of its rising competition. “The real estate world is the biggest barometer,” he said, explaining that they look at real estate listings to see where dark store type spaces are being leased, and by whom. “We know what’s happening in every city in the country.”

Even if other players get to one of 1520’s target markets first, Shevlyagin doesn’t appear too concerned. “It still takes you some time to make sure your supply chain works well,” he said. “We are deep in discussions with other cities. We still have this time.”

Redefine Meat Launches 5 “New Meat” Plant-Based Proteins in Israel

Plant-based meat company Redefine Meat announced five new products are now available at select Israeli restaurants and hotels. The “New-Meat” line consists of Redefine Burger, Redefine Ground Beef, Redefine Lamb Kabob, Redefine Sausage, and Redefine Cigar (a classic Middle East dish that wraps meat in pastry).

As we’ve covered before:

Redefine Meat uses 3D-printing technology along with ingredients it calls “Alt-Fat,” “Alt-Muscle,” and “Alt-Blood” to create whole cuts of plant-based meat that mimic animal-based meat. The company has also mapped out 70 sensorial parameters that let it control factors such as texture, juiciness, fat distribution and mouthfeel.

It should be noted that the products Redefine announced today are not whole cuts, but rather ground versions of meat. This is a pretty standard way for plant-based meat companies to enter the market because replicating the structure of animal meat with plants is way more difficult than creating a minced product.

And like Impossible Foods, Redefine Meat is first going to restaurants with its new plant-based meats. It’s “New-Meats” are available at: Hudson, Nam, Asif Center, Eddi’s Hideout, The Lounge, Sinta Bar, C2, Guesta, Joz & DanieBudega, and American Kitchen.

Redefine plans to expand New-Meat availability to Europe in Q4 of this year followed by U.S. and Asian expansion in 2022.

The entire plant-based meat space is getting more sophisticated and moving beyond burgers (pardon the pun). Juicy Marbles introduced its (expensive) plant-based filet mignon in March of this year. In January of this year NovaMeat, which also uses 3D printing technology to create meat analogues, received €250,000 (~ $307,500 USD at the time) from the Spanish government and announced a collaboration with Disfrutar, a two-Michelin star restaurant. Other players in the 3D-printed plant-based meat space include fellow Israeli companies MeaTech and SavorEats (both of which are publicly traded on the Israeli stock exchange).

At the beginning of this year, Redefine Meat announced a partnership with Israeli meat distributor Best Meister and followed that with a $29 million Series A round of funding. The company plans to debut its whole cuts of plant-based meat at the end of this year, following pilot tests.

Kernel Mycofoods Wants to Make Affordable Fermented Protein for Emerging Markets

Whether or not you believe plant-based proteins are healthier for you or a way to save the planet, the one thing we can agree on is that they are not cheap. Over at my local Safeway I can buy a six-pack of Impossible Burger patties (24 oz.) for $15.99, or I can by a 10-pack (40 oz.) of Safeway-branded beef patties for $8.99. For families on tight food budgets, that $7 dollar difference is a huge deal.

Based in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Kernel Mycofoods is on a mission to bridge this price gap and deliver sustainable, healthy, plant-based protein at an affordable price for people around the world. “We started looking at how could we make a product that was comparable without a price that will exclude the emerging markets,” Kernel CFO Miguel Neumann told me last week by video chat.

As Neumann explained to me, there are plenty of markets around the world clamoring for a plant-based protein option, but aren’t able to sell a $7 burger because people there can’t afford. So Kernel turned to fungi.

The basis of Kernel’s product is the Fusarium venenatum strain of fungi, which has already been approved for consumption by regulatory bodies including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and The European Food Safety Authority. Additionally, Kernel says that growing its protein requires less water and land use than beef, chicken or soy, and produces fewer CO2 emissions than raising beef or chicken.

Using precision fermentation, Kernel is able to transform this fungi into a mycoprotein that it says has a higher protein digestibility-corrected amino acid score than beef, soy and wheat gluten. The company isn’t just fermenting fungi, however. It is also using computer vision and artificial intelligence to adjust the fermentation process to achieve different outcomes for its protein. Neumann told me that they have researchers examining each spore on the fungi on a microscopic level. With that information, they can change certain factors in the fermentation process to change something like the protein’s texture.

Kernel isn’t in the business of creating its own line of myco-burgers, however. “There are plenty of companies that are producing a lot of very loyal customers,” Neumann said. “We can not go into a straight fight with them.” Instead, the company will sell its protein to CPG companies for use in plant-based burgers, crackers and other types of consumer products.

Kernel may not want to fight for marketshare with other consumer brands, but it will be facing plenty of competition in the overall mycoprotein space. Fermentation is a hot technology right now, and there are a number of players using the technology to transform fungi into mycoprotein. Unilever is using Enough’s Abunda mycoprotein as an ingredient in plant-based meat from The Vegetarian Butcher brand. Tyson and Kellogg both invested in MycoTechnologies last year. And Better Meat Co. opened up its production facility last month to create its Rhiza mycoprotein.

Neumann said Kernel should be able to launch at scale in January of 2022, at which point the price should drop from its current cost of $3 per kilo to $1 per kilo. As it grows, hopefully the company can continue to bring those prices down so that more markets around the world do indeed have the opportunity to enjoy Kernel’s plant-based protein.

Spinn Extracts $20M from Investors for its Connected Coffee Machine and Marketplace

Spinn, the makers of the connected coffee machine that uses centrifugal force when making a morning cup of joe, has raised $20 million in new funding. TechCrunch was first to report the news this morning, writing that the new round was led by Spark Capital with participation from Amazon’s Alexa Fund, Bar 9 Ventures and other existing investors. This brings the total amount raised by Spinn to $37 million.

The Spinn is perhaps best known for its looooooong journey to market. Spoon Founder Mike Wolf pre-ordered a Spinn back in 2016, and after years of delays, Mike finally got his machine in July of last year. Based on the Spinn website, new machines can be pre-ordered for delivery this Fall, and cost between $479 and $779, depending the accessories included.

The hook with Spinn is that it uses centrifugal force to, well, spin the coffee grounds for extraction rather than pressing. The machine spins the grounds more slowly for regular coffee, and higher for espessso-based drinks. The result, according to the company, is a more nuanced and flavorful cup of coffee.

In addition to its hardware, Spinn also has an online marketplace selling more than 700 different types of whole beans. During an interview at our Food Tech Live event in 2020, Spinn CEO Roderick de Rode told us that when users order coffee from Spinn, they can scan the bag with their phone and precise extraction instructions are sent to the machine.

We actually haven’t seen a ton of coffee-related news so far this year. The similar superautomatic Terra Kaffe coffee machine raised $4 million in November of last year. And Trade raised $9 million for its online coffee marketplace last September.

De Rode told TechCrunch that his company will use the new funding to further develop its brewing technology and scale up production to fulfill outstanding orders for the machine.