This week, US-based Starship Technologies raised funding to take its meals supply robots into new markets; whereas the Netherlands’ Source.ag secured seed capital to smarten up greenhouses. Elsewhere, animal-free cheese acquired one other enhance – and Singapore’s famed road meals hawkers served cultivated meat to most people for the primary time.
Foodtech startup funding
🇺🇸 Softbank Vision Fund 2 leads e-grocer Weee!‘s $425 million Series E spherical. The service will broaden its choices of hard-to-find Asian and Latin meals to extra locations in the US. (AFN)
🇺🇸 Starship raises nearly $100 million in a month. The maker of meals supply robots scored $42 million in Series B funding lower than 30 days after its €50 million ($55 million) infusion from the European Investment Bank. (OttOmate)
🇸🇪 Swedish biotech startup Mycorena raises €24 million ($26.8 million) for mycelium protein. This is the most important Series A spherical ever for a Nordic startup in different protein. (AFN)
🇬🇧 Animal-free cheese will get a lift with Better Dairy’s $22 million Series A. Using precision fermentation, the startup is creating fully vegan exhausting and aged cheeses. (TechCrunch)
🇮🇱 DisruptiveAI leads $17 million Series A for Tastewise. Food and beverage firms can use the Tastewise AI platform to check new substances and merchandise and predict the subsequent large tendencies in the business. (CTech)
🇺🇸 Flashfood baggage $12.3 million Series A funding to combat meals waste, meals insecurity. S2G Ventures led the spherical, which can go in direction of Flashfood’s growth to extra US and Canadian grocery shops. (AFN)
🇸🇬 Cellular ag startup Unami Meats nabs $2.4 million in pre-seed funding. The Singapore firm has earmarked funding for continued R&D of the corporate’s cultivated seafood merchandise. Better Bite Ventures and CULT Food Science have been among the many collaborating buyers. (Umami Meats)
🇿🇦 CULT Food Science has additionally backed precision fermentation firm De Novo Dairy. South Africa’s De Novo develops recombinant milk proteins via fermentation and hopes to carry a variety of dairy alternate options to market. (Food Navigator)
🇪🇸 Alt-bacon maker Libre Foods raises €2.2 million ($2.5 million). The Barcelona-based startup plans to broaden its mushroom-based product line from bacon to whole-cut beef and rooster. Green Generation Fund led the spherical with Good Seed Ventures, ProfessionalVeg International, and Veg Capital becoming a member of in. (Green Queen)
🇬🇧 CellulaREvolution scores £1.75 million ($2.38 million) pre-Series A financing. The Newcastle University spinout is engaged on “steady cell culturing applied sciences” for the aesthetic meat business. Hong Kong’s Happiness Capital led the spherical; Allusion One additionally invested. (Vegconomist)
🇩🇪 Keen 4 Greens raises $2 million for fermented mycelium product. The firm will pursue creating complete cuts of plant-based meat to go together with the nuggets and burgers it already makes. (Green Queen)
Agtech startup funding
🇳🇱 Dutch startup Source.ag secures $10 million for greenhouse software program. Source claims its knowledge and AI instruments could make greenhouses and indoor farming extra environment friendly and with greater yields. (Silicon Canals)
🇮🇩 Ag market AgriAku raises $6 million to democratize farmer entry to inputs. The Jakarta-based market hyperlinks sellers of fertilizers, seeds, and different inputs with native ag shops that serve smallholder farmers. GoTo‘s Go-Ventures led the pre-Series A spherical. (AFN)
🇺🇸 ‘Regenerative’ e-tailer 99 Counties closes $3.8 million pre-seed spherical. It will formally launch its market, which helps farmers promote their regeneratively-raised meat to customers, in its native Iowa later this 12 months. (TechCrunch)
🇪🇬 ContemporarySource, which says it’s reinventing the ag provide chain, has closed a seven-figure US greenback seed funding spherical. The Cairene startup connects farmers to provide patrons akin to resorts and eating places in 11 Egyptian cities. 4DX Ventures and Wamda invested in the spherical. (Disrupt Africa)
M&A, IPOs & partnerships
🇮🇱🇺🇸 Phytolon and Ginkgo Bioworks collaborate on meals colorants. The Israeli startup and US biofacturing platform will develop new, “pure” pigments throughout the yellow-to-purple spectrum via precision fermentation of yeast. (Phytolon)
🇺🇸 Food supply app DoorDash acquires restaurant ordering platform Bbot. Financial phrases of the deal weren’t disclosed. (Fast Company)
🇮🇳 Cloud kitchen agency Kitchens@ merges with Kitchens Centre. The merger makes the previous one of many greatest ghost kitchen gamers in India with 1,000 amenities throughout 20 cities. (Economic Times)
Other information
🇸🇬 Eat Just’s GOOD Meat brings cultivated rooster to hawker stalls. Singapore’s world-famous meals hawkers will characteristic GOOD’s rooster bites in their dishes in what’s the newest growth for the corporate in the city-state. (The Straits Times)
🇮🇱 Tnuva launches new enterprise capital fund. Tnuva NEXTwill make investments NIS 30 million ($9.28 million) in Israeli foodtech startups in 2022 after investing the identical quantity in firms final 12 months. (The Times of Israel)
🇨🇦 Canada approves world’s first plant-based Covid-19 vaccine. Local biopharma firm Medicago developed the vaccine, which was discovered to be 71% efficient in medical trials in opposition to Delta and Gamma variants. (AFN)
🇺🇸 Amazon opens first Whole Foods with cashierless tech in Washington, DC. Amazon’s Just Walk Out know-how lets clients select their grocery gadgets then bypass the normal checkout course of. (The Verge)
🇺🇸 Nonprofit Conscious Alliance and plant-based protein firm ALOHA launch marketing campaign for starvation reduction. The two are calling on different meals manufacturers to carry donations, financial contributions, and social media posts. (ALOHA)
https://agfundernews.com/starship-nets-42m-source-raises-10m-the-week-in-agrifoodtech
