Startup news and deals
🇫🇷🐛 NutriEarth, a French startup, raised €8M for its production of vitamin D3 made from insects. With the funding, it will develop a facility in order to scale the production and meet the demand for sustainable vitamin D3.
🇺🇸 🪰 ByBug, an American startup, raised $1.4M to use black soldier fly larvae as bioreactors. It genetically engineers the larvae to produce proteins for various applications, including food ingredients. It says it is cheaper and more scalable than using engineered microorganisms (what precision fermentation companies are doing). Maybe tomorrow’s cheese protein will come from insects, who knows?
🇺🇸🦠 NovoNutrients, an American startup, raised $18M for its technology that transforms carbon dioxide into protein through biomass fermentation. The protein can be used for human and animal applications. It will use the funds to build a pilot facility. This sub-segment of the alternative protein ecosystem where startups seek to turn CO2 into a source of protein is small (a handful of startups), but it is doing well, with most of the players moving to the industrialisation stage. With cheap, sustainable energy costs (that will inevitably come), incentives to pump CO2 out of the atmosphere, and a neutral-tasting protein (compared to mycelium), they may have a winning business model.
🇪🇸 🛵 La Gran Familia Mediterránea (LGFM), the virtual restaurant startup launched Dani García, a famous Spanish chef, has filed for bankruptcy with a debt of €12.2M. Since its launch in 2020, it was never profitable. It shows how complicated the delivery business can be, how different it is from running a successful restaurant, and, more importantly, that the association with a Michelin-star chef does not always create value when selling hot dogs.
🇫🇷 🥚The Very Food Co, a French startup, raised €1M for its plant-based egg white alternative for professional bakery.
🇺🇸 🤖 Cartken, a US-based startup, raised $22.5M for autonomous delivery robots intended for last-mile delivery and industrial settings.
🇺🇸🍺 Athletic Brewing, an American startup, raised $50M to expand its nonalcoholic beer offerings to meet growing consumer demand for healthier beverage options.
🇩🇪 🍽️ allO, a German startup, raised $5M for its all-in-one restaurant management platform targeted at ethnic restaurants.
🇫🇷 🧀 Bel, a French cheese producer, announced a partnership with Dassault Systèmes. Bel will gain access to its data platform, in order to use artificial intelligence to create new recipes, better for the health and and the enviroment.
🇺🇸 🌾 Alphabet, Google’s parent company, will pivot the model of Mineral, its AI and agriculture-focused startup. It will switch to a licensing model for its technology.
🇺🇸 🍔 AI-assisted drive-thru ordering is on the rise, even if it still come with flaws. When the technical issues will be solved, and as for other technologies (such as QR codes), one challenge will be to manage the generational gap in preferences.
