Here are the 10 deals that we found the most exciting and interesting for you to know this week:
🇹🇭 🚴♂️ 🦄 Line Man Wongnai, a Thailand-based startup, became a new delivery unicorn by raising $265M. Beyond restaurant and grocery delivery, the startup also operates a offers restaurant solutions, taxis and other services.
🇫🇷 🦆 Gourmey, a French startup working on cellular agriculture to create slaughter-free foie gras, raised $48M. It will use the funding to build its pilot production facility in Paris. In a period of uncertainty and when raising funds is much more complicated than it was a year ago, such large funding is a show of strength for the startup and the overall alternative protein ecosystem.
(disclaimer: we have been investors in Gourmey for a couple of years)
🇺🇸 🌱 Inari, a US-based startup, raised $124M for its solution that uses AI and gene editing to create crops with better yields and lower water and fertilizer requirements.
🇺🇸 🍊 GrubMarket, a platform to digitize farmers’ commerce operations and a marketplace to connect them to their clients (wholesalers or retailers) raised $120M. General Mills is among the backers of a round that rise the valuation of GrubMarket to $2B.
🇺🇸 ♻️ The Rounds, a US-based startup, raised $38M for its zero waste closed-loop system where customers get delivered with grocery items in reusable containers. These are then picked up to be cleaned and reused at the next delivery. While a handful of similar startups emerged in Europe recently, this funding is the largest (by far) in this category.
🇺🇸 🧃 Pulp Culture, a US-based startup, raised $7M for its alcoholic functional beverages. Basically, it has a range of beverages claiming functions such as “restore” or “think” (and yes, one is called “play”). I find it quite funny that the “functional” space is now expanding to alcoholic beverages. I have to admit that I would not immediately turn to alcohol when i need to focus.
🇺🇸 💧💧 Path, a US-based startup, raised $30M for its aluminium-made water bottles (that can be reused). Similarly, Liquid Death, a water-in-a-can startup, raised $70M at a $700M valuation (it says it will reach $130M in sales this year, so that’s quite a good valuation). It seems that the use of aluminium instead of single-use plastic bottles for water is definitely taking off. I have to say that I am still somehow sceptical about the environmental argument around it. If aluminium is more recyclable than plastic, it’s still a lot of waste, and Liquid Death’s water is exported from Austria.
🇺🇸 🇫🇷 🍕 A very mixed-feeling week for pizza-robot startups. French startup Pazzi shut its door. This comes after a succession of failures in this sector all over the world. However, all hope is not dead for those of us who dream of unlimited pizzas made by robots: US startup Stellar Pizza just raised $16.5M for its robot pizza truck.
🇸🇬 🍽️ Klikit, a Singapore-based startup, raised $2M to help South-East Asian startup to manage “tablet hell” (having a tablet for each delivery platform in your restaurant can bring hell to the best managed restaurant).
