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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Week in Food Tech Funding

The Week in Food Tech Funding: AI-Powered Future Food Attracting Lots of Venture Capital

When it comes to AI meets food, it’s easy to think of food robots, precision farming, or even restaurant tech. But over the past year or so, we’ve seen a parade of new startups emerge that use machine learning and other forms of AI to develop new food building blocks.

Take Kingdom Supercultures. The company, which raised $25 million a couple of weeks ago, uses machine learning to explore the properties of existing cultures to create what it claims is the world’s largest biobank. From there, they mine to explore potentially new and interesting microbial combinations called supercultures that provide new functionality, flavors, and more.

And this week, a company called Shiru, which uses machine learning and precision fermentation to create analogs to animal-based ingredients, raised $17 million. Like Kingdom, Shiru is using AI to rapidly develop a massive proprietary database, only Shiru’s dataset is the first to focus on “protein identity with protein-related food function.” The company mines its database with machine learning to identify novel ingredients that replicate “the taste, texture, gelation, foaming, emulsification, and binding abilities of animal proteins.”

In short, both companies are using AI to build next-generation ingredient platforms and, in doing so, are hoping to accelerate the process of ingredient development by an order of magnitude over a purely wet lab approach.

And they’re not the only ones. Climax Foods, led by Google’s former head of data science, is building plant-based cheese by analyzing data sets using machine learning to figure out what novel tastes and textures a set of particular raw ingredients and isolates will yield. Brightseed is analyzing plant molecules using AI to understand and isolate new phytonutrient compounds and, you guessed it, build a database from which they make predictions about how these new compounds may impact health.

It’s an exciting time in the world of future food. As advances in AI and cutting-edge biotechnology continue to merge and yield new food building blocks at a breathtaking pace, we’ll be watching for the next Kingdom Supercultures and Shiru to emerge over the next year.

If you are the next company in this space, drop us a line. We’d like to hear from you.

And now for the rest of this week’s funding news.

Agtech

Pure Harvest Smart Farms – $65 Million: UAE-based precision agriculture firm Pure Harvest Smart Farms has raised $64.5 million in funding. Today Pure Harvest operates three farms in the UAE and is developing new farms in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Pure Harvest’s crops include tomatoes, leafy greens, and strawberries. The funding brings the company’s total invested capital to USD 271.6 million, which the company claims is the MENASA (Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia) region’s largest agtech investment.

Grubmarket – $145 Million – Grubmarket, a B2B and B2C digital supply chain company, has raised $145 million Series E. The company, which operates an online marketplace for fresh produce, offers managed warehousing and supply chain operation services across North America, and has a variety of cloud software for food wholesalers and farms, is on track for a $1 billion annualized run rate. The company plans to use the funding to expand into new markets (and hopefully to improve its website, which does not look at all like a website of a company close to $1B in revenue).

Fermentation

Aqua Cultured – $2.1 Million: Alt-seafood startup Aqua Cultured has raised $2.1 million in pre-seed funding. Unlike many other alt-seafood startups using a straight plant-based or cell-cultured approach, Aqua Cultured uses microbial fermentation techniques to create whole-muscle cut seafood alternatives. The company has developed formulas for tuna, whitefish, squid, and shrimp that leverage its novel fungi as the primary ingredient. Investors include Supply Change Capital, Aera VC, Sustainable Food Ventures, Hanfield Venture Partners, Lifely VC, Conscience VC, Kingfisher Capital, Big Idea Ventures. $2.1 million, a nice pre-seed raise, is even more impressive considering the company only started last month.

Coffee

Cometeer – $35 Million: Cometeer, a company that makes frozen coffee pucks and sells them in packs via a DTC-by-mail model, has raised a $35 million Series B. The company’s pucks consist of 10x strength frozen coffee which are dropped into hot water to make a drinkable cup of Joe. The pucks aren’t cheap at $64 for a box of 32, or $2 a pop. You can see Ashlen Wilder’s review of Cometeer here.

Fast Grocery

Gorillas – $1B: We have a few more details on the nearly $1 billion in funding for Gorillas we wrote about early this month. The company raised an almost $1 billion in funding, with Delivery Hero leading the round with $235 million in funding in exchange for 8% of the company. While that seems like a whole lotta capital, the company’s going to need it as it continues to build out a warehouse and dark store network that is already in 55 cities across Europe and the U.S.

CPG

N!CK’s – $100 Million – Better-for-you food company N!CK’s has hauled in an impressive $100 million in funding in a round was led by Kinnevik, Ambrosia and Temasek. Others throwing their hat in the N!CK’s ring include Gullspang, fellow Swedish food standout Oatly, Peak Bridge, Capagro and Nicoya. The company uses proprietary sweeteners and other ingredients to make ice cream, protein bars, and cookies. N!CK’s plans to use the money to accelerate its North American and European growth by expanding its product portfolio and doubling N!CK’S store count in 2022.

Food Robots

Fabric – $200 Million – Fabric, a maker of robotic micro-fulfillment solutions for grocery and e-commerce retailers, announced today they have raised $200 million in a Series C funding round. The new funding puts the company’s valuation at $1 billion. Formerly called Common Sense Robotics, Fabric works with large online grocers and retailers such as Walmart, Instacart, and FreshDirect to build automated micro-fulfillment centers via a mix of fulfillment-as-a-service and hybrid ownership models. The company’s solution involves an intricate blend of robotics, vertically stacked storage of products, and human operators and packers that help package up the final delivery and handoff to delivery drivers.

The Week in Food Tech Funding: Culture Biosciences & Tufts Nab Funding as Interest in Scaling Cell Ag Grows

Over the past 12 months, money has poured into cultivated meat startups as venture investors, celebrities, and governments look to get in on what many believe is the next big thing in alternative protein.

However, as the excitement grows, some are taking a harder look at how to scale the production of lab-grown meat to make a dent in the larger animal-based meat market. According to one estimate, the industry will need up to $30 billion invested in cell-based/fermentation production capacity if the alternative protein market hits just 11% of total meat consumption by 2035 and significantly more if consumer adoption exceeds expectations.

Much of that $30 billion will be directed to capital investment in building out long-term production capacity. However, before we get there, the industry first needs to invest in organizations building the necessary technology and production platforms to enable scale-up. This week saw two significant investments intended for just that: Culture Biosciences ($80 million) and Tufts University & partners ($10 million).

Culture Biosciences helps companies developing future food products with its bioreactor-as-a-service platform. The company introduced its first product a couple of years ago, a cloud-connected benchtop bioreactor service for cell-culture and bioprocess development. With their new round of funding, Culture looks to move beyond the bench with cloud-connected 5L and 250L bioreactors-as-a-service that will help firms optimize for pilot scale bio-manufacturing.

The second investment isn’t a traditional venture investment, but the $10 million USDA funding award to Tufts University for a cultured protein center of excellence is a vital investment nonetheless. In partnership with others, Tufts will lead an Institute for Cellular Agriculture to develop foundational technologies and processes to enable the cultivated meat industry to progress towards scaled production. The foundational work done by this organization will include everything from research on next-generation cell-culture medium to the development of education and leadership programs for the cultivated meat industry.

As companies try to take cultivated meat from the lab to the manufacturing plant, some question if cellular agriculture will ever be able to scale upwards cost-effectively and safely enough to justify all the investment. While we won’t know the answer to this question for a few years, it’s an encouraging sign that investments are being made to address the next big challenge in cellular agriculture.

And now, the rest of this week’s funding news:

Food Supply Chain

TrusTrace – $6 Million: TrusTrace, a Sweden-based startup building food supply chain traceability software solutions, has raised a $6 million Series A funding round. TrusTrace uses blockchain, AI, and bots to track products as they navigate their way through the supply chain. The company claims to have 8 thousand suppliers and 250 thousand products on the platform. My guess is TrusTrace and other traceability platform players are getting lots of inbound inquiries as everyone from ingredient and component suppliers, manufacturers, and retailers are trying to figure out how to work through the great 2021 supply chain disequilibrium.

Plant-Based Food

Grounded Foods – $2.5 Million: Plant-based cheese maker Grounded Foods has announced a $2.5 million raise. The company, founded by the husband and wife team of Shaun Quade and Veronica Fil, makes cheese products with hemp seeds and cauliflower. Grounded is already in 160 different retail locations today and plans to use the funds to expand further in the US and to set up for expansion into Europe.

Ag Tech

Kuva Space – €4.2M ($4.9M): Kuva Space, a provider of realtime agricultural data using space-borne hyperspectral camera technology, has raised $4.9 million. The company plans on using the funding to launch a constellation of six-unit nano-satellites to gather imagery in the 400 to 1,100 nanometer band. The company provides data that helps farmers optimize fertilizer and irrigation needs, optimal harvesting times, and early-stage pest or plant disease detection. With its second generation satellites, the company plans to expand its carbon monitoring capabilities.

Food Waste

Orbisk – €2.4M: Orbisk, which provides professional kitchens with automated analysis of food usage and associated waste flow using machine vision and AI, has received a €2.4 million grant from the European Commission’s European Innovation Council (EIC). The data from Orbisk’s analysis allows customers to adapt processes and purchasing to better manage and reduce food waste. Orbisk won the EIC funding with a pitch for its ‘Binspector’ project, under which the company will invest in dynamic AI models to increase accuracy and rapid adaptation in international menus, as well as further development of its food management algorithms.

Fish Tech

OptoScale – $4.1m (£3m): Optoscale, which makes machine vision and sensor technologies real-time monitoring of fish farm stock, has raised £3 million led by SWEN Capital Partners. The Norway-based company says it can analyze up to 200,000 fish per day using its technology, which compares with 50 to 100 fish using traditional analysis methods. Optoscale, which currently operates in Norway, Canada, and Scotland, plans to use the money to expand operations to Australia, Chile, and Iceland.

Restaurant Tech

ResQ – $39 Million: Well that was fast. After raising $7.5 million in a June seed funding round, ResQ, which provides a software platform for managing restaurant repair and maintenance tasks, has raised a $39 million Series A. Through their platform, restaurants can request, manage, and pay for a service, as well as manage the documents for these things. ResQ also connects restaurants with a network of contractors able to perform those services. The company’s list of available services includes HVAC, refrigeration, electrical, janitorial, plumbing, pest control, grease trap cleaning, preventative maintenance, and most anything else needed to keep a restaurant kitchen up and running. Since its seed round, the company has said its customer base has grown from seven states to 36 in the US. They plan to use the funding to grow their team by 400%.

C3 – $10 Million: Virtual restaurant/host kitchen platform company C3 has raised another $10 million in strategic funding from Swiss private capital firm, Lurra Capital, just a few months after it had raised a $80 million Series B. C3 (short for Creating Culinary Communities), works with kitchen operators (host kitchens) to fulfill orders for virtual restaurant brands. As of mid-year, the company operated about 40 virtual restaurant brands. The company plans to open 1,000 virtual brand locations by year’s end and has plans to open 12,000 globally by 2023.

Food Robots

Future Acres – $1.7 Million: Farm robotics startup Future Acres has raised $1.7 million via equity crowdfunding on Seedinvest. The company makes a self-driving robot called Carry that utilizes GPS and computer vision to navigate around the field and haul up to 500 pounds of produce. The company, which has raised a little over $400 thousand in pre-seed funding, plans to use the funds for product development, payroll, marketing and operations.

The Week in Food Tech Funding: Perfect Day’s Big Raise & Gorillas Quits Monkeying Around

The week’s big news is a $350 million Series D raise by precision fermentation unicorn Perfect Day. There’s a whole lot packed into this announcement, so let’s get right to it:

First, the funding raises Perfect Day’s total to $750 million and sets the company on track for a possible IPO. The timing couldn’t be better, as tech startups continue to see rising valuations and the market is hungry for more food tech (see Oatly). And while Ginkgo Bioworks was the first company with significant precision fermentation (PF) capabilities to IPO, Perfect Day will be the first true future food PF pure-play to go public.

As part of the news, the company announced an expansion of its consumer products company, the Urgent Company (TUC). TUC, Perfect Day’s wholly-owned CPG company behind the Brave Robot ice cream brand, will add new “household staples” to its portfolio with Modern Kitchen, the second consumer brand under the TUC umbrella. Modern Kitchen’s first product will be dairy-free cream cheese, which the company will make with its animal-identical whey. As part of the announcement, TUC revealed Brave Robot is now in 5 thousand stores and that they’ve moved a million pints of ice cream.

Speaking of Brave Robot, it always struck me as a risky choice for a product name. Sure it stands out, but Brave Robot also doesn’t exactly make one think of tasty ice cream, which I think is the biggest challenge for a product that also wants to somehow communicate to the consumer it is made differently from traditional ice cream. With Modern Kitchen, I have to wonder if Perfect Day went purposefully conservative, choosing a brand this time around that doesn’t create extra work for itself.

Perfect Day also announced their third line of business (the other two being ingredient innovation and consumer products) in enterprise biology scale-up services. This move is a formalization of its enterprise biology efforts that started with the company’s 2020 acquisition of bioprocess scale-up facility SBF. With its new business line, Perfect Day hopes to help other food companies with technology transfer and scale-up consulting services.

“We first got into the ingredient business because food companies, big and small, were eager to work with the ingredients we had successfully scaled,” said Perumal Gandhi, Perfect Day co-founder, in the news release. “Today, something analogous is happening on the technology side. There are innovators all over the world with ideas and ambitions similar to our animal-free milk protein, but need help getting there. We’re standing up business models to be able to share our demonstrated capabilities in a way that maximizes upsides for all, yet ensures that Perfect Day remains at the forefront of our new industry.”

What struck me about the series of announcements is they illustrate how Perfect Day has matured in both its business and how it talks about itself. The addition of business services not only adds a new revenue line to the company, but it is a strategically savvy move that will set Perfect Day up with a pipeline of long-term IP licensing and ingredient supplier opportunities.

On the company messaging front, it wasn’t all that long ago that Perfect Day struggled to describe its technology and the animal-free dairy products that resulted from it. That’s changed, however, as this announcement brims with confidence. The company has clearly figured out how to communicate the benefits of its product while also giving just the right touch of details around the technology behind it all.

And now, the rest of this week’s funding news:

Cultured Meat

New Age Meats – $25 Million: California-based New Age Meats has raised a $25 million series A to help fund product development and ramp up production of its pork sausage products. Founded in 2018, the company hopes to bring its products to market next year as it uses the funds to double its workforce and build a first pilot production plant.

Ghost Kitchens/Virtual Restaurants

All Day Kitchens – $65 Million: Ghost kitchen startup All Day Kitchens announced this last week they’ve raised a $65 million series D to expand its distributed network of satellite kitchens. The company, which launched in 2018, focuses on helping small independent restaurants expand their reach via a unique model; Unlike traditional ghost kitchens with often treat restaurants like a landlord, All Day Kitchens helps to launch its new restaurant partners across its entire network of kitchens in a given metro area.

Plant-Based

Ripple – $60 Million: Pea-protein alt-dairy specialist Ripple has raised a $60 million Series E. Ripple, which basically is to pea milk what Oatly is to oat dairy products, has continued to grow its products ever since its 2015 debut and plans to use the funding to expand into even more new products and markets. While not all pea-protein products from Ripple have succeeded – see our review of the pretty-bad and now discontinued Ripple yogurt here – I’m intrigued to see what new products they bring to market (well, of course, except maybe yogurt).

Food Delivery

Avo – $45 Million: Israel-based food delivery startup has raised a $45 million Series B. Avo, which offers white-label food and consumer products delivery to landlords and employers, says it plans to use the funding to expand into 10 new metro markets over the next year. From the release: Avo’s mission is to deliver everything from groceries and alcohol to electronics and personal care items to millions of people daily. The company’s customizable amenity platform enables residential and commercial customers to obtain everyday items, the same day, without any minimum order size or incurring any delivery fees of any kind. The platform also excludes a tipping fee, as Avo has a full-time salaried team. Stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic, Avo is currently adding a new major market every month – a dramatic increase in growth that has helped drive revenue 1000% over the past two years.

HUNGRY – $21 Million: Chef-powered catering delivery company HUNGRY has raised a $21 million Series C from a mix of athletes, reality TV talent show singers, and the usual mix of corporate venture capital funds. The company, which lets companies cater food from chefs, works with a variety of high-profile chefs such as Tom Colicchi and has claimed it allows chefs to earn up to half a million per year on the HUNGRY platform.

Swiggy – Half a $Bil?: Indian food delivery startup Swiggy is reportedly in talks to raise a $500-$600 million funding round that would value the company at one Oatly ($10 billion). Invesco will likely lead, while others like Softbank will also throw in capital.

10 Minutes Grocery Delivery

Gorillas – $950 Million: Gorillas, the fast-growing, fast-grocery delivery business has raised an eye-popping $950 billion in funding. The news comes even as the company has reportedly decided to stop monkeying around with a US expansion, at least for the time being. According to Business Insider Germany, Gorillas has decided to scale back its US expansion plans outside of New York City and is laying off employees beyond the Big Apple. This funding comes in large part from Delivery Hero as Gorillas continues expansion in as Germany, the United Kingdom, Spain, and France.

Plant-Based Fish

Hooked – €3.8 Million: Sweden’s Hooked has raised €3.8 Million for its plant-based fish products. Like many new alt-protein funding rounds nowadays, Hooked’s with news of a celebrity backer, Swedish music star Danny Saucedo. The company launched its plant-based tuna brand Toonish into retail last month in the Swedish market.

Food Robots

Piestro – $4.7 Million: Piestro, a maker of robotic pizza-making kiosks, has raised just under $4.7 million via equity crowdfunding. The campaign, which the Wavemaker Labs portfolio company ran using StartEngine, will be used to fund the second-generation Piestro, which will be the first pizza robot from the company to be deployed in consumer-facing locations and take payments. The company hopes to have its new prototype deployed by December of this year. Wavemaker Labs, which describes itself as a “robotics and automation corporate innovation studio”, has shown a preference for using platforms such as StartEngine and SeedInvest to raise funds with its portfolio companies like Piestro, Miso Robotics, Future Acres and Bobacino.

The Week in Food Tech Funding: Double (Alt) Cheese Funding & Big Money for Misfits

Fall is upon us in the Pacific Northwest, and alongside autumn colors and windy weather is lots and lots of food tech venture capital. This week’s funding news includes not one but two alt-mozzarella startups, a monster round for ugly produce online retailer Misfits Market, and three pieces of food robot funding news.

On to it:

Plant-Based Food

Sophie’s Kitchen – $5.6 Million: Sophie’s Kitchen has raised $5.6 million to fund the growth of its plant-based seafood lineup of products. The company, founded in 2010, offers a line of alt-seafood products, including crab cakes, shrimp, salmon, and tuna. Billy Goat Brands led the round, a Canadian venture fund focused on sustainability. Sophie’s Kitchen products can currently be found at Walmart, Sprouts, and Wegmans. The funding continues the momentum for the plant-based seafood category, which saw $116 million in funding in the first half of 2021 (compared to $26 million for the whole of 2020).

Growthwell – $22 Million: Singapore-based plant-based seafood and chicken maker Growthwell has raised a $22 million Series A led by Creadev. The company, which raised $8 million last year, “owns a portfolio of alternative protein companies aimed at Southeast Asian consumers, including OKK (plant-based meat), Su Xian Zi (vegan mutton), and gomama (ready to eat dishes made from plants).” They also sell a chickpea protein powder called ChickP for use in meat and dairy alternatives.

NUMU Food Group: Plant-based cheese startup NUMU has raised early in September. The amount of the funding was undisclosed. The company makes plant-based mozzarella from potato starch, soybeans, and coconut oil. Started a former DJ named Gunars Elmuts, NUMU sells its cheese to food service providers in shreds and blocks.

Precision Fermentation

Formo – $50 Million: Berlin-based Formo announced it had raised $50 million in Series A funding. The investment in the maker of animal-free cheese was led by EQT Ventures, with Elevat3 Capital and Lowercarbon Capital. Formo uses a precision fermentation process to make animal-free dairy cheese with animal identical proteins. The company plans to use the funding to “With the resulting increase in R&D capacity, Formo intends to expand its product portfolio to represent a wide variety of European dairy specialties such as mozzarella and ricotta, with techniques designed in collaboration with artisan cheesemakers.“

Food Robots

Pudu Robotics – $78 Million: China-based Pudu Robotics announced this week it had raised a $78 million C2 found of financing, matching the same dollar amount for its May C1 funding round. In total, the company has raised $156 million in Series C financing. The company makes a few different types of bots, including a front-of-house bot called the Bellabot, a cleaning bot, and two models of delivery bots.

Keenon Robotics – $200 Million: Another China-based robotics startup Keenon Robotics has raised an impressive round with its $200 million Series D. Its round was led by Softbank. Like Pudu Robotics, Keenon also makes food delivery and front-of-house food service bots and robots for hospitals.

Daxbot – $211 Thousand Crowdfunding: This week, Daxbot, a maker of sidewalk food delivery robots, launched its equity crowdfunding raise. Like many food robot startups, Daxbot is using StartEngine for its raise, and the company has already (as of this writing) raised $211 thousand from 136 investors. Today the company’s robots are being used for food delivery in Philomath, Oregon.

Online Grocery

Misfits Market – $225M Series C-1: Online grocer Misfits Market announced it had raised almost a quarter billion in new funding via a Series C-1 round. It’s a quick turnaround for more capital for the sustainability-focused online grocer that works with farmers and food producers to save ugly produce and food that otherwise would go into the compost bin; the company raised a $200 million Series C in April. Misfits Market joins fellow ugly food retailer Imperfect Foods as one of the companies that have tapped investor interest in the food waste space.

Smart Vending

Foodles – €31 million: Smart corporate food vending/catering startup Foodles has raised a €31 million Series B round from InfraVia Growth and Bpifrance via its Large Venture fund, and follow on rounds from existing investors, Creadev, DN Capital, and Adelie. The French company offers connected fridges, which it calls canteens that it supplies with food. According to the company, each fridge can provide food to up to 59 employees. The company hopes to disrupt a European contract catering market worth 240 billion euros.

Food Supply Chain Software

Grubmarket – $120 Million: Grubmarket, a provider of software and services to enable food producers, has raised a $120 million Series E round. The company’s software enables food producers and distributors to manage inventory, pricing, customer relations, and other company-related operations. The company’s announced hinted in the announcement that they will likely expand from just software into robotics in the future: “GrubMarket will likely also start to explore connected hardware to help those customers, too: robotics for picking and moving items” related to those activities managed by its supply chain oriented software.

Restaurant Tech

SpotOn – $300 Million: Payments software startup SpotOn announced this week it has raised a $300 million Series E to help finance the acquisition of Appetize, a mobile and digital payments startup focused on sports and entertainment venues, amusement parks, and zoos. Mega-VC Andreessen Horowitz led the deal (as they did SpotOn’s last round). A16z’s eagerness to inject more capital into SpotOn probably has a lot to do with the company’s tripling of revenue over the past 18 months. SpotOn, which has traditionally focused on SMBs (the segment of the restaurant space that has been the most aggressive in modernizing its tech stack during the pandemic), will now be able to sell into the enterprise market with the newly acquired Appetize.

The Week in Food Tech Funding: Olio Continues Food Waste’s Hot Streak

Food waste reduction is a hot investment space and one of the most active investor segments within the broader category in surplus food marketplaces.

And last week food waste kept on trucking as Olio, perhaps the most well-known of the share-your-food app startups, announced a $43 million Series B investment. Cofounder Tessa Clarke describes the funding as transformational via this Medium post and explains the three ways she sees funding being put to use:

  • Investment in Core Product: The company plans to hire more developers and build out new features in the core product, including “new features such as ‘Borrow’ and ‘Wanted’.”
  • Expansion of Food Waste Hero Programme: The company plans on expanding its corporate partner program that sources food from food service companies to pick up their excess food waste and redistribute into the community
  • International: the company is eyeing expansion into markets beyond Europe and North America, and it currently has 10 most promising in mind in ” Latin American, Asian & Northern European regions.”.

Over the past couple of years, we’ve watched as companies like Too Good to Go, Flashfood and Karma have raised funding to expand their platforms that enable restaurants and grocery stores to sell excess or soon-to-expire food to deal-shopping and lower-income consumers.

What sets Olio apart is that it enables home to home sharing for food. In this way, it’s like a more focused and less cluttered version of the Buy Nothing Facebook groups that have popped up in recent years. According to Clarke’s Medium post, Olio has helped save 25 million portions of food and 3 million other household items from being tossed in the waste bin.

Olio’s round continues a hot streak for food waste prevention investment over the past month after we saw Apeel raise an eye-popping quarter billion in funding in August. Both Apeel and Olio said they’d seen an acceleration in adoption over the past year, which echoes what we heard at our Food Waste Innovation Forum in June: The pandemic forced both companies and consumers to get serious about reducing food waste.

Here’s what else happened in food tech funding:

Plant-Based

Proeon – $2.4 Million: Pune-based plant-based ingredient company Proeon has raised a $2.4 million seed round. The company is similar to Motif Foodworkds in that its focus is building a range of different ingredient building blocks for companies building plant-based food products. The company plans to use its funding to build an R&D facility in the Netherlands, file more patents and hire more people.

CHKN Not Chicken – $4.5 Million: Portland Oregon based plant-based chicken startup CHKN Not Chicken has raised $4.5 million from Stray Dog Capital. The company will use the funding to expand the distribution of its flagship product into retail and grow its restaurant business. Unlike many of the alt-chicken products like Impossible’s new nuggets, which is made with soy, CHKN Not Chicken is made with pea protein.

Precision Fermentation

All G Foods – AU$16 million: Australian alt-protein startup All G Foods has raised AU$16 million in seed funding to fund growth for its plant-based meat business (Love BUDS Meat) and its precision fermentation-based alt-milk (CellMilk). The company is moving fast with veteran entrepreneur Jan Pacas at the helm. Pacas, who cofounded pet-sitting website Mad Paws, started the company only a year ago.

Cell-Based Meat

CellX – $4.3M: China-based cell-based meat startup CellX has raised $4.3 million in funding. The company makes a cell-based pork product. The company, which has 25 scientists working on developing its cell-based meat product platform in Shanghai. CellX is one of two startups this week that are semifinalists for the XPRIZE “Feed the Next Billion” competition, which is an indication that investors see participation in the XPRIZE contest as a validation of the company.

Wild Earth – $23 Million – Plant-based pet food startup Wild Earth announced a $23 million funding round from a group of investors that includes Mark Cuban and the star of Vampire Diaries, Paul Wesley. The company plans to use the funding to expand its pet food product line into products that use cell-based meat. The company plans to offer cell-based beef, chicken, pork, and seafood as part of the ingredient list for the new lineup, which it plans to start rolling out in 2022.

Mogale Meat Co. – Investment Amount Unknown: Mogale Meat Co, a South African-based cultured meat company, received an investment from alt-protein investor CULT Food Science Corp. Mogale plans to use the capital to invest in BioBank, which, according to the announcement, is “Mogale’s core intellectual property asset that currently contains over 500 cryo-preserved cell samples derived from free-roaming livestock and wild antelope.” Like CeeX, Mogale is an XPRIZE “Feed the Next Billion” semi-finalist.

Food Delivery

Cookunity – $47 million; Chef-powered meal delivery service CookUnity raises a $47 million Series B funding round. CookUnity, which provides chefs with kitchens and the digital platform to connect directly with consumers, is planning on using the money to expand the cities it’s doing business in. The company saw a topline revenue growth rate of over 5x over the past 12 months and has 55 chefs on its roster.

Food Robotics

Piestro – $2 Million+: Piestro, the automated artisanal pizza-making robot that is part of the Wavemaker Labs family of food robot investments, has raised over $2 million on crowdfunding startup platform StartEngine with less than three weeks to go. WaveMaker has continued to emphasize equity crowdfunding as a way to raise capital, starting with Miso Robotics, in which the company has raised $30 million so far via crowdfunding, and other portfolio properties such as the Bobacino robotic tea bar and Future Acres’ ag-bot.

Restaurant Tech

Heard – $10 Million: Hospitality and restaurant point of sale startup Heard has raised $10 million. The company, which counts Tiger Woods as one of its investors, makes point of sale software suite that includes front and back-of-house management tools for smaller restaurant operators.

That’s it for this week. If you have funding news you want in our weekly food tech news wrapup, let us know. And make sure you subscribe if you want to get The Week in Food Tech Funding in your inbox.

The Week in Food Tech Funding: Who-Hoo Cajoo!, Gatik Hauls In $85M

Fast Grocery Startups Continue Stocking Up on Big Cash

Cajoo, a 15 minutes or less fast grocery delivery specialist from France, has raised $40 million in fresh funding. The lead investor on the deal for the startup with the sneezy-sounding name is grocery giant Carrefour. As part of the deal, Carrefour will allow Cajoo to leverage its purchasing organization.

Cajoo is part of a growing cohort of fast grocery (and creatively-named) startups like Weezy, Gorillas, Flink, GoPuff, and JOKR that are building networks of dark stores to deliver a variety of products in (largely) metro areas in the US, Europe, and Asia. The delivery times vary slightly (some promise 10, others 15), as do the products (some are just essentials while others focus on fresh food), but all are looking to expand fast by raising big cash.

Carrefour’s interest in Cajoo makes me wonder if big grocery giants will begin to partner with or acquire fast-grocery startups to compete with Amazon. In recent years, Amazon, which doesn’t offer 15-minute delivery (at least yet), has been putting pressure on grocery providers to up their games with their one-hour or less delivery. While Amazon is much stronger in the US when it comes to grocery (though its presence in Europe is growing), established grocery companies like Carrefour probably see a future where fast-grocery is a utility and are preparing accordingly.

What will be interesting to watch is how established grocery players mesh operations with fast-grocery providers over time. Big players like Kroger and Walmart have widely distributed networks of warehouses and retail stores, but in the fast-grocery business, where neighborhood proximity is key, startups build out their dark store networks zip code by zip code.

For those old enough to remember Kozmo.com, it’s easy to see the similarities with this new generation beyond just the funny name. But unlike Kozmo, this new wave of fast-grocery startups comes at a time when advances in logistics technology, mobility and automation make distributed fast-grocery possible and when consumers en mass are shopping online for daily necessities.

Some are already suggesting online grocery is reaching a saturation point and consolidation is around the corner. While I think this is probably right, I also expect fast-grocery startups to keep bagging big funding rounds for at least the next 6-12 months until the buying frenzy starts.

Fast Grocery isn’t the only funding story this week. Here’s what else happened in food tech funding:

Alt Protein

Plantible Foods, $21.5 million: Plantible Foods, a startup which grows plantweed (aka Lemna), has raised $21.5 million to help fund growth. The San Diego based startup has developed a process to produces a protein that has many of the functional properties of egg white as well a neutral taste and color. The protein is based on RuBiSco enables egg white applications like emusifying and binding for products like creamers and cream cheeses.

Stockeld Dreamery, €16.5 million – Stockeld Dreamery, a maker of plant-based cheese alternatives, raised €16.5 million. The company’s flagship product is a feta alternative made from a base of fermented peas and fava beans. The company is planning to use the new capital to grow its team from 22 people to about 50. In 2022, Stockeld will move into a pilot production plant and headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden.

Ag Tech

Fieldin Raises $30 Million: Fieldin, an ag tech startup that makes tools that digitizes the management of farms, has raised $30 million series B. The company has developed what it calls an agricultural operating system (AgOS) that uses AI and IoT tech to help farmers manage “the entire growing cycle from planning to execution, including equipment, workers, materials, and more.” Sensors are installed on farm equipment like tractors and sprayrs and, according to Fieldin, turns it into ‘smart’ machines.

Protealis, €5.7 Million: Protealis, a company that provides sustainable seeds for protein crops, raised a €5.7 Million in an extension of a Series A round it started earlier this year with a €6 Million investment. The company develops new variants of seeds of protein crops like soy that breed faster and are more resilient.

CPG

Poppi, $13.5 Million: Prebiotic soda company Poppi raises a $13.5 million Series A2 led by CAVU Ventures with some help from celebrities Russell Westbrook and the band the Chainsmokers, and a few others. The company’s ties to CAVU go back to when founders (husband-wife team Stephen and Allison Ellsworth) appeared on Shark Tank in 2018 and got an investment firm’s co-founder Rohan Oza for its prebiotic filled soda.

Allklear, $1.3 Million: Hong Kong-based functional beverage startup Allklear has raised a $1.3 million (HK$10 million) pre-A funding round. The company’s flagship beverage is called Detox Future Salad that is packed with 12 ingredients and 25 essential nutrients that the founder claims is equivalent to five bowls of salad.

nu company, €14 million: nu company, which likes lower-case letters and better-for-you chocolate, has raised a €14 million Series A funding round. The company has a chocolate bar brand in nucao and also has an organic protein brand numove. The company’s products are in 10 thousand stores today and the company has seen triple digital growth over the past four years.

Food Robots & Automation

Gatik, $85 Million: Robotic delivery startup Gatik has raised $85 million Series B, bringing its total funding to $114 million. The company specializes in middle mile delivery, which is shuttling goods between businesses such as between a distributor’s warehouse to a retail store. The company will use the funds to expand operations in Texas, its fourth delivery area, for its all-electric box truck.

Grocery Tech

Zippin, $30 Million: Cashierless checkout startup Zippin raised $30 million to continue to expand its operations across four continents. Zippin joins others like Grabango, Sensei, and Tripo in raising funds this year as the grocery industry accelerates its push into the automated checkout space. The automated checkout cohort is just one segment in a growing array of new companies hoping to help the grocery industry modernize its tech stack. Over the past half-decade, the industry has been racing to modernize their often antiquated technology both in-store and online as they see Amazon trying to pull customers away and companies like Instacart looking to front-end and disintermediate them.

That’s it for this week. If you have funding news you want in ou weekly food tech news wrapup, let us know. And make sure you subscribe if you want to get the The Week in Food Tech Funding in your inbox.