Startup news and deals
🇩🇪 🛒 Who said that quick commerce was dead? Flink, a German startup, raised €100M to expand its operations. This follows inconclusive discussions of mergers with Just Eat Takeaway and Getir.
🇹🇷 🥶 Ok, quick-commerce is maybe dead. Getir exits Europe and the US and shuts down Gorillas, a company acquired for €1.1B. Getir, once valued at almost $12M, will now only focus on Turkey, its home country. For quick-commerce, it really looks like it’s the end of the hype and that we are just going back (with $5B lost in the journey) to where things stood three years ago.
🇺🇸 🚇 Pipedream (I love this name) raised $13M to develop an underground delivery network for urban logistics. Let’s say everything is in the name… I don’t see how underground logistics can be built in city centres as we still have challenges with water pipes in London or garbage management in Paris (not to mention that the undergrounds are often already well-packed in most cities). But who knows? Even logisticians need to dream!
🇳🇱 🍔 Mosa Meat, a Dutch cultivated meat startup, raised €40M to increase production. It also says it is currently seeking regulatory approval in multiple regions.
🇩🇪 🍔 Cultimate Foods, a German startup, raised €2.3M for its cultivated fats that will help to improve the taste of plant-based foods. As it becomes increasingly clear that creating cultivated meat “at scale” will be a long-term challenge, we observe a new focus on “functional ingredients” created through cellular agriculture, which, instead of being the main component of future products, will only be there as flavour enhancers (hence required much less of them). This could be, indeed, the best road to success for the cellular agriculture industry, first small quantities of high-value ingredients and then, eventually, large-scale production.
🇺🇸 🍫 Bite, an American startup, raised $9M for its omnichannel ordering platform for the foodservice industry. It is impressive how deep the “digital restaurant” market is, as wave after wave of new startups emerge to solve increasingly niche problems.
🇰🇪 🌾 Pula, a Kenyan startup, raised $20M to expand its agricultural insurance services to smallholders in emerging markets.
🇩🇰♻️ Aiperia, a Danish startup, raised €7.5M for its AI-powered technology that helps grocery store to optimise their stockes, and ultimately to reduce food waste.
🇨🇦🌱 Growcer, a Canadian startup, raised $3M for its modular vertical farms.
🇺🇸 🤖 Serve Robotics, an American startup, raised $40M for its delivery robots. It plans to soon have 2,000 robots on the streets.
🇺🇸 💥 Foxtrot, a US-based startup, the formerly hype and highly-regarded “future of the corner shop” startup, is shutting down. It was a mix of a high-end convenience store, a café, and an online delivery supermarket. From what we understand from this situation, it seems that having both profitability and high growth while maintaining an upscale image was too complicated.
🇸🇪 🥒 Saveggy, a Swedish startup, raised €1.76M for its plastic-free, edible packaging for cucumbers.
🇳🇱🌱 Meridia, a Dutch startup, raised €5.2M for its data verification platform that helps companies manage agricultural data to ensure compliance with global standards and regulations.
🇫🇷 🌱 Edonia, a French startup, raised 2€M for its technology that microalgae into a texturised ingredient for food applications.
🇺🇸🍟 Wilde, an American startup, raised $20M for its protein-rich chips.
Regulation & public support
Industry news & trends
🥤56 companies are responsible for half of the world’s plastic pollution. Danone and Nestlé each account for 3%, Pepsico for 5% and Coca-Cola brands for 11%. This comes from a research study examining the brand names of plastic pollution in 85 countries over 5 years. As plastic production keeps increasing, there is a growing need for alternatives beyond recycling.
