💸 Funding news
🇺🇸🌱 Rebellyous Foods, a US startup, secured $3.5M to scale production of its plant-based meat alternatives, aiming to lower its price point and ultimately achieve price parity with meat.
🇩🇰🧬 BactoLife, a Danish startup, raised over €30M for its precision-fermented food-grade functional proteins designed to neutralise harmful metabolites in the gut. With this additional funding, it will move forward with clinical validation through human studies and then commercialisation. This deal is the perfect example of the current trend of a growing intersection between food and health that is only starting.
🇬🇧🌾 Biographica, a UK startup, raised €8M to accelerate crop trait development, cutting breeding timelines by 5 years. It also announced a partnership with BASF.
🇨🇱🐟 Oxzo, a Chilean startup, secured $25M to expand its oxygenation and aeration systems for aquaculture farms.
🇺🇸🍫 Honey Mama’s, a US startup, raised $4M to expand manufacturing and distribution of its better-for-you chocolate snacks.
🇳🇱🍄 The Protein Brewery, a Dutch startup, received €2.3M from the EU LIFE Programme to scale mycoprotein powder (Fermotein) for dairy alternative applications.
⭐ Acquisitions, regulation, bankruptcies and partnerships
🇺🇸🥗 Splendid Spoon, a US ready-to-eat meal kit startup, acquired Mosaic Foods, a competitor, combining $190M+ in cumulative online revenue.
🇺🇸🦐 Aqua Cultured Foods, a US startup, using fermentation to create seafood alternatives, shut down in December after five years, unable to secure financing without “undue risk” despite$10M raised.
🇺🇸🍄 Meati Foods’ Colorado facility was seized over non-payment of ~$7M in property taxes. From a valuation in the hundreds of millions to “tax seizure”, the story of this formerly leading startup in the meat alternative ecosystem will remain as a great example of “what not to do”, and more specifically “how not to scale pre-emptively” (as not scaling before having commercial traction).
📊 Leading Companies & Macro Trends
🇺🇸🧀 Good Culture, an innovative cottage cheese brand, received a majority investment from L Catterton, a private equity firm. It values the company at over $500M. This example shows the “power of brands” to reinvigorate and modernise sleepy categories, while delivering significant value.
🇺🇸🥩 The US released new, and already controversial, dietary guidelines under Health Secretary RFK Jr., prioritising protein and healthy fats while discouraging ultra-processed foods, representing a significant shift from previous low-fat recommendations.
🇺🇸🤖 OpenAI launched ChatGPT Health, integrating medical records and wellness apps (Apple Health, MyFitnessPal) for personalised nutrition and health insights.If ChatGPT is about to become the nutritional advisor by default (which he already is for many), and with a biais towards healthy foods, food companies all across the supply chain should wonder how to position brand should wonder how they will position themselves in this new paradigm.
🌎 2️⃣ GLP-1 weight-loss drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy work while you take them, but a new study showed that most patients regain the lost weight within 2 years after stopping. This confirms that it is, for now, most probable that these drugs will become prescriptions “for life”.
