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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Big Idea Ventures

Big Idea Ventures Raising $250M Fund Targeting Later-Stage FoodTech Companies

Big Idea Ventures (BIV), the hybrid VC firm-slash-accelerator, first caught my attention last year when it launched the New Protein Fund, a $50 million fund targeting seed-stage companies in the alternative protein space, and made its first investment in cell-based seafood company Shiok Meats. At the same time, BIV announced a twice-yearly accelerator program for budding alt-protein startups with locations in New York City and Singapore.

Now the accelerator is seeking its second cohort — and BIV is preparing to launch its second fund. Called Generation Food, BIV’s newest fund will target later-stage companies, Series A and beyond. It will expand its focus to tackle sustainability across the food supply chain, not just in the alternative protein space. The target amount? 250 million dollars.

I hopped on a call with Tom Mastrobuoni, a Venture Partner at BIV and the former CFO of Tyson Ventures (which invested in the New Protein Fund), and Andrew Ive, the founder and Managing General Partner of BIV, earlier this week to learn more about Generation Food. Mastrobuoni said that this fund will take a step back to tackle some of the larger, underlying issues plaguing the food system. He named six target areas:

  • Alternative Protein. With the Generation Food fund, BIV will continue to invest in alt-protein. However, they’ll focus on companies that are enabling general growth within the sector instead of particular food brands.
  • Innovative Ingredient Options. Better-for-you ingredients for healthy products including salt and sugar replacements.
  • Breakthrough Manufacturing. Improved manufacturing processes for proteins, as well as more sustainable packaging and low-waste water solutions.
  • Food Safety Innovation. Technologies that are making food safer and last longer, e.g. hyperspectral imaging.
  • Traceability and Transparency. Supply chain enhancements — but not just blockchain, which Mastrobuoni pointed out can be cost-prohibitive.
  • Logistics Enhancement. Ways to get food from A to B more efficiently, without relying so much on old-school methods like trucks.

At the same time, BIV will continue to use its New Protein Fund to fuel the Accelerator program. Thus far BIV has invested in 12 seed-stage companies through its Accelerator Program — which is split between Singapore and New York — and are about to kick off another. Ive said that he plans to start raising for the second New Protein Fund when the current one’s capital is about 75 percent deployed — in two years or so. He also plans to add at least one more cohort location.

Generation Food is a big step up for BIV, both in terms of scope and size. Ive told me that they were inspired to start the fund after speaking with large corporates, many of whom are making significant commitments to shareholders and consumers about how they’ll reduce their environmental impact — be it through packaging, water usage, CO2 emissions, etc. “Large corporates want to make these changes,” Ive told me. “They just don’t necessarily have the technologies in place to deliver on them.”

That’s where BIV can come in. Instead of corporations having to re-engineer their businesses to meet these targets, they can integrate technology from mid-stage companies which will do it for them.

Considering the volatile economic climate right now, it might seem like an odd time to launch a venture fund. But for BIV, COVID-19 is actually proving the relevance of food technology more than ever. “The pandemic is shining a light on the cracks that have always been just under the surface of the food supply chain,” Mastrobuoni told me. With the Generation Food fund, BIV hopes to drive innovation into spaces that can enhance sustainability and make the supply chain more resilient, should something like the coronavirus strike again.

Indeed, one of the things to come out of the COVID-19 pandemic is a heightened awareness around our food — where it comes from, how safe it is, and how inconsistent our supply chain can be (just try to find flour at your grocery store and see what happens). If we want to ensure a more resilient supply chain — especially in case another catastrophe strikes — we have to make our food system more sustainable now.

That’s the kind of argument that could help BIV attract the full $250 million for Generation Food.

Cauliflower Camembert? Grounded Foods’ New Plant-based Cheese is Surprisingly Delicious

When I was doing Vegan January (also known as Veganuary) this year, there was only one thing I missed: cheese. While there are relatively good substitutes available for ice cream, butter, milk, yogurt, and even eggs, cheese was the one thing that I just could not find an animal-free replacement for that didn’t taste bland, rubbery, or worse.

So when I went into the Big Idea Ventures (BIV) office in New York City this week to taste a new plant-based cheese from startup Grounded Foods, part of BIV’s latest alternative protein accelerator program, I came in with a healthy amount of skepticism. Especially since I knew that the main ingredient in many of the cheeses was one of the unsexier vegetables on the planet: cauliflower.

Grounded Foods’ vegan “Camembert.” [Photo: Catherine Lamb]

But before we get to the taste test, here’s a bit of background. Founded in Australia in July of 2019, Grounded Foods grew out of co-founder Shaun Quade’s efforts to develop a plant-based Roquefort (blue cheese) for a new high-end restaurant concept. As he and his co-founder (and wife) Veronica Fil started looking for funding for the restaurant, they realized that people were actually interested in investing in the Roquefort itself. “They just wanted to give money for the plant-based cheese!” Fil said.

Since then the company has participated in the Mars Seeds of Change accelerator, for which they earned $40,000, and just relocated to New York a few months ago to join the latest Big Idea Ventures cohort. As part of the alt-protein accelerator they receive $250,000 in funding. Next up Fil and Quade plan to move to the West Coast, where they believe there is the largest audience for high-caliber faux cheese. Fil and Quade hope that their products will attract not only vegans but flexitarians who either have dairy sensitivities or are looking for healthier ways to get their “cheese” fix.

The pair plan to launch their cheese through high-end restaurants later this year in order to establish the Grounded Foods brand before branching into direct-to-consumer sales and, eventually, retail. Ambitious plans to be sure, but Quade revealed that they’re prepared to scale; in fact, they’ve already secured a location on which to build their first large scale manufacturing facility on the West Coast. They’ve also filed a patent for their fermentation protocol, which Fil told me is the secret sauce that makes their cheese so “addictive” and full of umami (savory) flavor.

Pricing isn’t set in stone, but Fil told me that they expect to be cost-competitive with other cheese alternatives right out of the gate. Since their product is made using relatively inexpensive ingredients and low-tech processes, she claims it’s not expensive to produce. Grounded Foods is also cutting cost by using “ugly” cauliflower — vegetables that are aesthetically unfit to sell to grocers — to make their cheese.

Australian feta made from hemp seed. [Photo: Catherine Lamb]

Now for the moment of truth: how did the Grounded Foods cheese taste? I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised. Most of offerings were a home run, successfully imitating the things I love most about cheese: the umami flavor, silky texture, and creaminess. The camembert (cauliflower + hemp) was a standout; it actually emulated the funky “stinkiness” that you taste with aged French cheese. The gruyere (oats + cauliflower) was slightly less similar to its namesake, though it had a sharpness that would take well to being melted over pasta or tucked in a sandwich. The Australian feta, which was marinated in olive oil and herbs, was pleasantly smooth and fatty, and the scallion cream cheese would honestly have fooled me in a taste test. It was that good.

The only miss for me was the “cheese” sauce, which is meant to replace Velveeta. While tasty it tasted distinctly vegetal and reminded me more of a butternut squash sauce than the beloved neon-orange cheese sauce.

The offerings I sampled were only the tip of the faux cheese iceberg. Quade is already developing other vegan cheeses to add to the Grounded Foods portfolio, including a mozzarella and blue cheese. “We have not fully explored the potential of vegetables,” Quade told me. There’s also another product line in the mix meant specifically to appeal to Gen Z diners.

Gruyere made from hemp seeds. [Photo: Catherine Lamb]

Besides being quite tasty, Grounded Foods’ biggest advantage is its ingredient list. Most plant-based cheeses are made of nuts, soy, or coconut oil. The first two eliminate consumers who have certain food allergies, and the oil-based cheeses don’t have much nutritional content to speak of. Instead they’re made just of cauliflower, hemp, and oat, transformed through Quade’s proprietary fermentation process (which he, unsurprisingly, was hesitant to reveal too many details about).

While Grounded Foods is trying to crack the animal-free cheese code with plants, other companies are using a decidedly more high-tech approach. Perfect Day and New Culture have developed a method to ferment dairy proteins using genetically engineered microbes; in essence creating milk without the cow (which can then be turned into cheese). However, there’s no word on exactly when these offerings will go to market — or how costly they’ll be when they get there. Next-gen dairy startups like Eclipse Foods and Noquo Foods are also using plans to develop better-tasting cheese alternatives, but neither has announced a concrete timeline to enter the market.

Grounded Foods has been moving incredibly quickly considering it’s just over 6 months old. However, it’s still a young startup with only two full-time employees (Fil and Quade), neither of whom have experience scaling an alternative business. We’ll have to see if they can establish all the tricky parts of running a food manufacturing business, like establishing a supply chain, branding, and finding effective restaurant and retail partners.

However, with demand for plant-based cheese on the rise, there’s a lot of space for a market disrupter who will make vegan cheese that’s actually worth eating. And as far as taste goes, Grounded Foods takes the cake — er, camembert.

Alt-Protein Accelerator Big Idea Ventures Is Taking Applications for Its Next Cohort

Alt-protein startups, take note. Big Idea Ventures, an accelerator focusing specifically on the future of protein, is currently taking applications for its next cohort, which has locations in New York City and Singapore.

Part startup accelerator, part venture fund, Big Idea Ventures (also known simply as BIV) looks for companies making plant-based food products, exploring cellular agriculture, or coming up with new ingredients that could pave the way for more animal-free proteins in the food industry. For the $5.2 billion alt-protein space, creating a standout product will become more challenging for companies over the next decade as more versions of non-dairy cheese, plant-based seafood, and lab grown burgers come to market.

The two programs run concurrently. Ten companies are chosen for each, with both programs lasting five months long. Participants get a $125,000 cash investment and a $75,000 in-kind investment, as well as office space, mentorship opportunities, test kitchen facilities, and other resources. There is also potential for BIV to invest more in a company after the program wraps.

The overarching goal, as we noted last year, is to help companies identify and overcome challenges in their business, from finding the right mix of ingredients to getting a product to market and distribution. Companies interested in applying should already have an initial product that’s ready to scale.

 “Agriculture and animal farming is one of the largest contributors to global warming. If we can move people towards a more plant-centric diet that are delicious and easy choices to make, that’s going to have an impact,” Andrew D. Ive, Managing General Partner at BIV, told me last year.

As to differences between the two programs, there aren’t many. Part of the reason BIV chooses to host a program outside North America is so that it can connect startups to the right food producers, co-packers, and distributors, and also address some of those cultural nuances and preferences needed for companies to be appealing on a global level. For example, plant-based pork is far more likely to be a success in Asian markets over something like a Beyond burger. “If we’re gonna do this, we need to take into consideration what people eat on a regular basis,” Ive said.

BIV is taking applications for both NYC and Singapore. The final deadline is March 2, 2020, with the Cohort slated to kick off in May.

Applications Are Now Open for AgFunder’s Singapore Agri Tech Accelerator Program

Calling all agricultural-focused startups. This week, agri tech VC firm AgFunder announced its forthcoming startup accelerator, GROW, is now accepting applications.

GROW is a joint venture between AgFunder and agrifood accelerator Rocket Seeder, and includes backing from the Singapore government through Enterprise Singapore and the Economic Development Bank. The program will work with early-stage startups in the agri tech space to help them fine-tune their business models, identify target audiences, and prepare to get further funding.

Though based in Singapore, the program encourages startups from around the world to apply. According to an AgFunder blog post, those chosen to participate will receive up-to $120,000 in equity funding, $80,000 in-kind benefits, coaching and mentorship sessions, and access to “experts, test labs and deep-tech expertise in GROW research partners.”

Participants are expected to be in Singapore for part but not all of the duration of the three-month program, which kicks off in September. According to GROW’s FAQ page, those who complete the program will also become eligible for the accelerator’s +3 GROW program, which includes an additional three months in the GROW coworking space in Singapore along with extra coaching during that time.

AgFunder’s current portfolio includes companies that cover a range of different technology solutions both on the farm and in the food supply chain. Trace Genomics, for example, uses a proprietary analytics engine to help farmers track soil health. ImpactVision’s technology assesses food quality and safety through hyperspectral imaging. Aerobotics uses satellites and drones for pest-control on the farm.

As to why Singapore is the chosen location for the accelerator, part of the reason is that agri tech in that country is still fairly nascent and therefore needs more investment. Quoting Openspace Ventures’ Nicole Tee, the AgFunder blog post noted that, “it’s still early days for agtech in the region and so creating an active ecosystem was important to drive further investment and create ‘credible players in the global markets.'”

Of late, Singapore has received much attention for its role in developing cultured meat, as well as its recent $535 million investment to boost R&D in areas like robotics, AI, and sustainable urban food production. And other accelerator programs already have a presence in Singapore, including HATCH’s aquaculture program and Big Idea Ventures, who’s mainly tackling alternative proteins right now.

According to AgFunder, GROW is the first agri tech-specific startup accelerator to be based in Singapore. Applications close on August 19.

Hybrid VC Firm Big Idea Ventures Wants to Scale the Alternative Protein Revolution

We hear a lot about plant-based startups raking in big funding dollars — cough, Impossible Foods, cough — but not a lot about the companies investing in them.

One such company working to fund the alternative protein revolution is Big Idea Ventures (BIV). Helmed by Andrew Ive, formerly of food innovation accelerator Food-X, Big Idea Ventures is a hybrid venture firm with a VC arm and accelerator program.

It tore onto the scene a few weeks ago when it closed its first fund: the New Protein Fund, which now stands at roughly $50 million. “It’s the first and largest plant-based accelerator fund,” Ive told me over the phone last week.

The fund is backed by giants like Tyson Foods and Temasek, the Singaporean government’s VC arm. It will focusing heavily on plant-based protein startups, Ive said they’re are allocating 5 to 10 percent of their money for cell-based endeavors.

That makes it all the more interesting that they chose to make their first investment cultured shrimp company Shiok Meats. Ive told me that they were drawn in by the Singaporean startup’s product focus: crustaceans. He believes that the flavor and texture of cultured shrimp will be easier to commercialize than, say, beef or chicken. I’m not sure if that’s true, but it is impressive that Shiok Meats, which is less than a year old, has already done an (apparently successful) taste test of its minced “shrimp” in dumpling form.

BIV is also launching physical accelerator programs in two locations: New York City (to launch in Q3) and Singapore (to launch in Q4). Mike Lightman, Managing Partner of BIV, told me that they plan to accept 8 to 10 companies per cohort and do two cohorts per year. All accepted startups will receive $250,000 in funding, a space to work, and mentorship from their entrepreneurs in residence in exchange for a convertible note. Once the program is over, BIV will allocate $1 to $3 million among the top-performing companies. Over the next four years, Ive said that BIV is hoping to back around 100 companies.

In a lot of ways, this accelerator follows the typical script: young startups get funding and advice in exchange for a portion of their company. But BIV’s program diverges in a few ways. Firstly, it’s five months long as opposed to the more traditional three-month programs like Y Combinator and Food-X, which Ive found was too short to really help a company grow. BIV also has a full kitchen in their accelerator space, so startups can actually work on developing/scaling their products in-house. Finally, with their dual presence in Asia and the U.S. (with plans to expand into Europe sometime in the future), Lightman also noted that they can help reduce opportunity costs for entrepreneurs by giving them ready access to multiple markets.

BIV is entering the scene at a time when every major company and their mother seems to be launching a new accelerator. For mega CPG companies, like General Mills, Danone, and Kraft-Heinz, they’re a relatively easy way to discover new companies for acquisition and keep a finger on the pulse of what’s new and “hip.”

With this in mind, it’s not hard to see why Tyson and Temasek want to get in on an alternative protein accelerator.

Tyson has set out to become the number one provider of protein, no matter the source. It has invested widely in both plant-based and cell-based meat companies, including Memphis Meats, FutureMeat, and, up until recently, Beyond Meat. They’re also developing their own line of plant-based proteins set to launch this summer. Through their involvement in the BIV accelerator, Tyson will have access to a wide range of innovative new alternative protein companies, which they can try to acquire or just use to gain inspiration.

For Temasek’s part, Singapore has been quite progressive in pushing for innovation the alt-protein space. Through its new RIE2020 plan, the city-state will invest over $100 million in foodtech endeavors like cultured meat and microbial protein production. Temasek can use BIV’s cohorts to attract promising new alt-protein startups to Asia; which we’ve already predicted will be a hotbed for cell-based meat.

TL;DR: If you’re curious about what new companies are shaking up the alternative protein space, keep an eye on what Big Idea Ventures is up to. Another good way to stay up to date is to subscribe to our Future Food newsletter! You’ll get a weekly dose of in-depth analysis on the plant-based and cultured protein landscape.

If you’ve got a plant- or cell-based startup of your own, you can apply for BIV’s inaugural accelerator program here.