💰 Funding news
🇦🇺 🧬 All G Foods, an Australian startup, raised $6.5M to scale the production of its human and bovine lactoferrin made through precision fermentation (notably through a joint venture with Armor Protéines, a subsidiary of French giant Savencia).
🇨🇦 📦 TrackTile, a Canada-based startup, raised $1.25 M for its AI-driven tracking solutions for small food & beverage manufacturers.
🇮🇳 🌿 Earthful, an Indian startup, raised $2.8 M to expand its range of clean-label plant-based nutrition and supplement focused on women’s needs.
🇧🇷 👶 Harmony Baby Nutrition, a US-based startup, raised $5.8 M from the Brazilian government to develop infant formula using breastmilk proteins made through precision fermentation.
🇦🇺 🛡 Squizify, an Australian startup, raised A$10 M to expand its digital food-safety training platform, notably in Japan.
🇳🇱 ☕ Wakuli, a Dutch startup, raised €5 M to scale its direct-trade speciality coffee model that seeks to create a better and more stable income for coffee farmers.
⭐ Acquisitions, bankruptcies and partnerships
🇺🇸 🥩 Believer Meats, a US-based cultivated meat startup, shut down operations. That’s a first for one of the very few startups that received regulatory approval in the US and which had built a pilot-scale facility. It shouldn’t be read as a sign of defiance towards cellular agriculture as a whole, but rather as an additional sign that nowadays investors prefer CAPEX-light models (startups that don’t scale their own production facilities and instead rely on external partners).
🇺🇸 🍹 AB InBev, the Belgian alcohol giant, acquired a majority stake in BeatBox for $490 M, a US brand focused on ready-to-drink alcoholic punch. Interesting move that illustrates we shouldn’t confuse noise (non-alcoholic beverages) with short-term consumer demand-driven trends.
🇮🇱 🍫 Kokomodo, an Israeli startup working on plant-cell culture for cocoa, announced a partnership with CSM Ingredients and Nexture to bring its ingredients at scale to customers.
🇨🇭 🧬 Pow.Bio, a US startup and Bühler, a Swiss manufacturer of fermentation equipment, partnered to accelerate next-generation precision fermentation at an industrial scale.
📊 Leading Companies & Macro Trends
🇨🇭 🍫 Nestlé removed chocolate from iconic bars labels as cocoa prices continue to surge (and as UK law requires a minimum of cocoa content to use the word “chocolate”).
🇺🇸 🍪 Mondelez launched sugar-free Oreos as part of its better-for-you snacking push.
💊 The next-gen GLP-1 drug from Eli Lilly helped patients lose up to 29% of body weight in late-stage trials, outperforming current benchmarks (15 to 21%). The arrival of these new drugs could give another boost to the adoption of GLP-1 drugs, as one of the main demands from GLP-1 drug users is still to lose more weight.
