🇳🇱 🛒 Picnic, a Dutch online grocer, raised €355M to boost its growth in France and Germany. Picnic is an impressive (and rare) example of a startup succeeding in the grocery delivery market. And, unlike its now-forgotten quick-commerce competitors, it can be profitable by delivering food the next day (rather than in 15 minutes).
🇺🇸🤖 Burro, an American startup, raised $24M for its agricultural robots that come alongside humans to move plants and produce.
🇪🇸 🥩 RIP, a Spanish plant-based meat startup focused on Asian-inspired foodservice products, is shutting down. Beyond this example, this shows how difficult things are for a large part of the “third wave” of plant-based products, which targeted niche markets (either through specialising in specific types of products, often also with higher-quality recipes).
🌍 💉 GLP-1 weight-loss drugs such as Ozempic are creating a wave of concern among fast-food chains and ultra-processed CPG brands. Others see them as an opportunity and are already planning “companion products” to go alongside the drug and support consumers in their journey.
🇧🇬 🐛 Nasekomo, a Bulgarian startup, raised €8M to scale its animal-feed insect farms across Europe. Unlike the biggest players in the insect space, which are (mostly unsuccessfully) developing large production facilities, Nasekomo wants to create a franchising model with decentralised farms.
🇫🇮 🏭 Enifer, a Finnish startup, obtained a €12M grant (from Finnish authorities) to build its first mycoprotein ingredient factory. With it, the startup will be able to produce 300,000 tons annually.
🇬🇧 🌱 Fa Bio, a UK-based startup, raised £5.3M for its bioproducts, which can boost crop productivity while reducing the need for chemical fertilisers.
🇬🇧 🥃 Bevvy, a UK-based startup, raised $1.5M for its whisky app, enabling consumers to scan any whiskey bottle’s label using their mobile phones to receive tasting notes and valuations. However, after testing the app with 10 bottles, 3 were not recognised. So, not so helpful yet.
🇮🇹 🍄 Mogu, an Italian biotech startup, raised €11M for its mycelium-based biomaterials production.
🇮🇱🥛Imagindairy, an Israeli startup, obtained US regulatory approval to sell its precision fermentation whey protein.
