💸 Funding News
🌱🇩🇪 Stenon, a German startup, raised €18M for its portable device that measures plant-available nitrogen and other soil parameters in seconds directly in the field, replacing slow and costly lab tests.
💊🇮🇳 Supply6, an Indian startup, raised ~$5M to expand its all-in-one daily nutrition supplement. Investors include Unilever Ventures.
🌾🇦🇪 Maalexi, a UAE startup, raised $2.8M for its agricultural trade platform enabling verified cross-border commodity trading and settlement across the Gulf, India, and Europe.
🥦🇮🇳 Ninjacart, an Indian startup, raised $6M as a first tranche of a larger ongoing round, as the B2B agritech platform eyes an IPO within two years. It operates a fresh produce supply chain across 40+ Indian cities and positions itself as the largest fresh produce supplier to India’s quick commerce sector.
💪🇮🇱 ProFuse Technology, an Israeli startup, raised $1.5M to pivot from cultivated meat media supplements toward a muscle health discovery platform. Its platform can help to identify ingredients and therapeutics that tackle GLP-1-related muscle atrophy.
📡🇮🇹 Archimede, an Italian startup, raised €1.5M for its modular plug-and-play kit combining satellite connectivity, predictive energy management, and a low-code software platform to monitor and manage critical infrastructure in off-grid environments (irrigation, pipelines, remote industrial assets).
🍦🇺🇸 Frozen One, a US startup, raised $5.75M for its high-protein ice cream brand.
🌍🇱🇹 InSoil, a Lithuanian agri-fintech, secured a €120M credit facility for its regenerative agriculture lending platform across Europe. The company has already financed 3,500+ agricultural SMEs and focuses on Poland and Lithuania as primary markets.
🍽️🇫🇷 Ekip, a French startup, raised €1.5M to scale its eco-responsible meal voucher (titre-restaurant) platform, which channels a portion of spending toward sustainable and local restaurants.
⭐ Acquisitions, Regulation, Bankruptcies & Partnerships
🔗🇩🇪 KoRo, a German food brand, acquired the intellectual property of Seedtrace, a supply chain traceability software platform. KoRo, a D2C food e-commerce platform, will use the technology to let consumers scan QR codes on packaging to trace product origin and processing steps, with blockchain-validated payments to smallholder farmers. The company also plans to eventually open-source the platform for the wider food industry.
🦠🇺🇸 Biosphere, a US biomanufacturing startup, acquired NovoNutrients, a gas fermentation (CO₂-to-protein single-cell protein) company that had put its assets up for sale a year earlier.
🐟🇺🇸🇩🇪 Bayou Best Foods, a US startup, acquired BettaF!sh, a Berlin-based plant-based seafood brand (vegan canned tuna and salmon, available across 8 European countries).
🥇 Leading Companies
🍦🇳🇱 Magnum invested €10M in a new production line in Hungary to scale output of its Magnum Bonbons, responding to the “shareable indulgence” trend toward smaller-format premium ice cream.
🌱🇨🇭 Nestlé joined the Regenerating Together Programme, a coalition of 40+ food companies (including PepsiCo, Danone, and Mars), to harmonise regenerative agriculture metrics and implementation tools across supply chains. Nestlé targets 50% of key ingredients (dairy, cocoa, coffee) sourced from regenerative farms by 2030.
📊 Macro Trends
💉🇺🇸 Medicare began covering GLP-1 obesity drugs for the first time on July 1, through a temporary program with a flat $50/month copay. An estimated 15–20 million Medicare beneficiaries qualify. This is a major stepstone and could support the already impressive adoption of GLP-1 drugs in America.
🐟🌊 The world is facing a major anchovy supply shock: a powerful El Niño has caused Peru to impose an indefinite fishing ban, cutting global fishmeal production by 30–40% year-on-year and pushing prices to an all-time high. Beyond our pizzas, this will impact the aquaculture industry: anchovies are a key feedstock for the aquaculture industry, and salmon prices are expected to rise 20–25%.
🍺🇪🇺 The EU is at war over the definition of cider: an interesting example of European normative excess? The European Commission proposed reserving the term “cider” for drinks containing at least 35% apple or pear juice, downgrading flavoured versions (watermelon, blueberry…) to “cider-based beverages”. Nordic countries are pushing back, accusing France and Spain of protectionism. The Commission has retreated toward a three-tier compromise (classic cider, cider, cider beverage), but no agreement has been reached.
