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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

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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.

86 Repairs Nabs $7.3M in Funding for Restaurant Maintenance Tech

Restaurant tech company 86 Repairs has raised an additional $5.3 million, bringing its total funding for its seed round to $7.3 million, according to a press release sent to The Spoon. Investors in this latest raise include TDF Ventures, Gordon Food Service, MATH Venture Partners, Revolution, and Cleveland Avenue. To date, 86 Repairs has raised $8.8 million.

Chicago-based 86 Repairs says the new funds will help the company build out more products for its maintenance and repairs management platform for restaurants.

The 86 Repairs system manages repair and maintenance processes for restaurants by digitizing information about all a restaurant’s equipment, and then handling the bulk of the work when there is an issue. For example, if a walk-in cooler breaks down, the restaurant calls or texts 86 Repairs, who handles things like troubleshooting, warranty checks, and setting up an appointment with a preferred technician. The company says it takes care of all communication, scheduling, and dispatching with a restaurant’s preferred equipment vendors.

The 86 Repairs platform also includes a “data insights” portion that displays things like incident history and overall spend on maintenance repair. The idea is to give restaurants one central location at which to view all data about all maintenance, even for large, multi-unit chains. To that end, a number of different chains already use the platform, including McDonald’s, Jimmy John’s, Sonic, and Famous Dave’s.

As predicted, both interest and investment in restaurant back-of-house technologies has increased since the start of the year. Though U.S. restaurants are for the most part reopened at full capacity, the need for cost-cutting and cost-saving measures is more important than ever.

ResQ, which just raised $7.5 million, is the other notable restaurant tech right now focused on repairs and maintenance.

Software that can digitize the maintenance management process makes sense for larger chains like McDonald’s. For smaller, independent restaurants — the benefits may be a bigger question mark. Spending money on another software subscription may or may not be justifiable, depending on how much a restaurant is able to save in overall maintenance and repair costs.

ResQ Raises $7.5M for Back-of-House Restaurant Tech

ResQ, whose software platform manages restaurant repair and maintenance tasks, has raised $7.5 million in seed funding, bringing its total funding thus far to $9 million. Homebrew, Golden Ventures, and Inovia Capital led the round, which also saw participation from various angel investors, including Instacart president Nilam Ganenthiran, Gokul Rajaram (Doordash, Board of Pinterest and Coinbase), and AirBnb’s Lenny Rachitsky, among others. ResQ’s restaurant customers, including Yum Brands! franchisee Soul Foods, also participated.  

The company’s technology focuses on a very specific part of the restaurant back of house: repairs and maintenance. Through the ResQ 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 ever-growing list of available services right now includes HVAC, refrigeration, electrical, janitorial, plumbing, pest control, grease trap cleaning, preventative maintenance, and just about anything else needed to keep a restaurant kitchen up and running.

Digitizing the management of such things would, ResQ suggests, help with revenue recovery in the restaurant back of house. The company says restaurants typically spend between 3 and 5 percent of annual sales on repairs, and that the ResQ platform has saved businesses 10 to 30 percent in annual repairs and maintenance spend. 

Keeping costs in the restaurant back of house down has been a topic of growing interest for the last several months. Lockdowns and restrictions stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic decimated already-thin margins for businesses. Many have said digitizing the back of house, whether through inventory management, back office-focused platforms, or maintenance management, is an important way to keep costs down. Granted, much of that talk comes from the tech companies selling these services and the investors funneling money into them. Realistically, smaller, independent restaurants won’t necessarily have the budget to pay for more software, at least not while the industry slowly recovers.

For its part, ResQ has plenty of bigger restaurant chains that are clients in the meantime. That list currently includes Wendy’s, Burger King, Panera, KFC, and Taco Bell, to name a few. 

ResQ will use its new funding to build up its team and launch its service in new markets. Currently, ResQ is available in Los Angeles, Dallas, Phoenix, San Francisco, and Chicago. 

 

Squadle Launches a Thermal Scanner for Restaurants to Better Monitor Employee Health

With restaurant dining rooms now open under new restrictions and precautions, we’re seeing quite a few devices emerge that aim to better monitor the health of workers and customers. The latest of these is from tech company Squadle, which today launched its Sqaudle Sense Thermal Scanner that lets restaurants and other foodservice businesses quickly perform automated health checks on guests and employees, according to a press release sent to The Spoon.

Cambridge, MA-based Squadle is already known among QSRs for its hardware-software system that automates operational tasks in the restaurant. McDonald’s and Dunkin’ are among the chains that already use the company’s technology.

Squadle Sense is a 6”x6” device that mounts to the wall and uses Squadle’s patented ZeroTouch sensor technology. That tech has until now been used by restaurants to monitor equipment like coolers or refrigerators. As part of Squadle Sense, it can now be used to monitor humans’ temperature. 

Employees “sign in” with an app or keycard, then simply stand in front of the device while it performs a quick scan. When the system detects an above-normal temperature, it automatically alerts a manager via the accompanying app. The system can also be used in the front of house for restaurants that want to check guest health before customers enter the premises. Restaurant owners and managers can configure settings (e.g., define “above normal” temperatures) remotely via the app.

According to today’s press release, the device is available for pre-order and will ship in Fall 2020. A monthly fee (determined according to the restaurant’s needs) covers both the hardware and software.

Squadle joins the likes of PathSpot, Fujitsu, POPid, and ResQ in releasing devices and software that monitors employee and guest health and provides better tracking of restaurants’ efforts around sanitization.

One of the challenges restaurants have encountered during this reopening phase is that there is no one single set of standards when it comes to sanitization practices and employee health and safety. That gets especially tricky as regulations vary from state to state. While Squadle isn’t claiming to set any kind of industry standard with its new device, the remote monitoring aspect of the system at least allows multi-unit chains to adhere to the same standards across borders and locations. 

ResQ Launches Checklists to Help Restaurants Manage COVID-19 Cleaning Guidelines

ResQ, a software platform that lets restaurants manage repair and maintenance tasks, announced today the launch of its Checklists feature. With it, the company aims to help restaurants better handle “the exhaustive list of health and safety guidelines for reopening to reduce the spread of COVID-19,” according to a press release sent to The Spoon. 

The new feature is available for free to restaurants in the U.S. and Canada, and joins ResQ’s growing collection of tools, which also includes maintenance management and invoicing, asset management, and workflow management for maintenance tasks. ResQ counts Pizza Hut, Tim Horton’s, and other well-known chains among its restaurant clients. 

Checklists digitizes the old pen-and-paper process of assigning daily upkeep tasks to restaurant staff. In a pandemic era, that list of tasks is considerably longer and might include things like disinfecting high-touch surfaces much more frequently, wiping down all screens (POS, kiosks, etc.), cleaning the lobby more frequently . . . the list goes on and on.

The problem is that there is no industry standard for that list. Back when restaurants first started to reopen, the National Restaurant Association released some suggestions around cleaning and sanitizing, but those are more guidelines than detailed instructions. Nowhere is there a definitive guide to sanitizing a restaurant during a pandemic.

ResQ’s Checklists doesn’t claim to be the definitive guide, but it does go pretty far in addressing the many tasks restaurants must do on a daily basis in order to meet the new standards for sanitization. With the feature, managers can create customized checklists specific to their business and space, and also take advantage of pre-loaded “COVID-19 prevention” checklists:

Via the ResQ app or website, a restaurant manager can create a new checklist or edit an existing one. Each checklist can be assigned to a specific staff person and given a frequency (e.g., “hourly”). For restaurants with multiple locations, checklists can be assigned to specific stores, ensuring standardized cleaning and sanitization processes across a brand’s locations.

Managers can track the progress of each task and, because the entire system exists in the ResQ app, pretty much anything except the cleaning itself can be done remotely. 

ResQ joins a number of companies using tech to help restaurants keep up with new expectations around cleaning and sanitization. PathSpot’s scanner uses visible fluorescent spectroscopy to monitor how well employees have washed their hands. Fujitsu’s AI-enabled sinks can also closely monitor hand washing. Elsewhere in the restaurant, some businesses are putting their touchscreen kiosks behind glass, which is easier to clean and doesn’t disrupt operations.

Keeping a restaurant extra-sanitized is paramount at a time when many consumers are still wary about going out to eat and COVID-19 cases are on the rise in some states. Like I said above, there’s no one set of rules every restaurant in the country must follow, which makes the proper sanitization something of a juggling act these days. Software like ResQ’s can at least standardize the process for restaurants across their own locations, not to mention help track how well their staff adhering to their tasks.