💸 Funding News
🧬🇨🇳 Guoke Xinglian, a Chinese startup, raised $14.6M to scale up its production of lactoferrin (a human milk protein with multiple applications in healthy ageing and baby food) through precision fermentation.
🌿🇫🇷 baCta, a Paris-based startup, raised €7M to produce industrial ingredients using engineered microorganisms. Its first commercial target is astaxanthin (an ingredient with pigment and supplement applications).
🍫🇧🇷 Cellva, a Brazilian startup, raised ~$3.8M for its cocoa-free chocolate ingredient made from upcycled coffee husk.
🚀🇩🇪 Flink, a German startup, raised $100M at a $900M valuation for its quick-commerce (grocery delivery in minutes from “dark stores” installed in city centers) platform. It will use the funds to expand in Germany and the Netherlands. Far from being dead (and even thriving in some geographies), is quick-commerce about to have a comeback in Europe?
🍄🇩🇰 Mycoverse, a Danish startup, raised €2.4M for fungal-based biological alternatives to chemical pesticides in potato farming.
🌱🇬🇧 Bindbridge, a UK startup, raised $3.8M for its crop-protection platform, aiming to create a glyphosate replacement.
🌾🇫🇷 Amatera, a French startup, raised €6M to accelerate crop development.
🐟🇳🇴 Biosort, a Norwegian aquaculture startup, raised $10M to commercialise its individual-based sea lice control system for salmon farming.
⚡🇦🇺 PlasmaLeap, an Australian startup, raised ~$19M for its on-farm green fertiliser production units.
🤖🇮🇱 AgriPass, an Israeli startup, raised $7.5M to deploy its robotic weed control platform across the US and Europe.
🌊🇺🇸 Aqua Theon, a US startup, raised $13M to expand OoMee, a seaweed-based functional beverage combining satiety support with “Seabiotics.”
🐾🇦🇺 Lyka, an Australian startup, raised ~$42M for its premium pet nutrition brand.
🍳🇩🇰 FoodOp, a Danish startup, raised €5M to expand its kitchen SaaS (handling menu planning, procurement and sustainability reporting) used by thousands of chefs into the UK and US markets.
🧴🇬🇧 Shellworks, a London-based startup, raised $15M for its bio-based plastic alternative made by fermenting waste cooking oil with microbes.
⭐ Acquisitions & partnerships
☕🇨🇳 Luckin Coffee, China’s fast-growing coffee chain, is acquiring Blue Bottle, the premium speciality coffee chain, from Nestlé. The deal expands Luckin beyond its Chinese and mass-market roots into higher-end global coffee. Nestlé keeps Blue Bottle’s consumer goods business.
🍺🇬🇧 Tilray acquired BrewDog for $44M, taking over its UK brewing operations and 11 brewpubs in the UK and Ireland. Tilray is separately negotiating BrewDog’s US and Australian assets. That’s come as quite a shock for a brand that was valued at over $2B a few years ago, and it reflects how dire things are for the craft beer market.
🥚🇫🇮 Onego Bio (a Finnish startup) and Sigma Foods signed a collaboration agreement to co-develop egg-free protein solutions using Onego’s egg ingredient produced through precision fermentation.
📊 Leading Companies & Macro Trends
🌜🌱 Scientists have successfully grown and harvested chickpeas in simulated moon dirt, mixing up to 75% lunar regolith simulant with vermicompost and inoculating seeds with beneficial fungi (plants grown in 100% simulated moon soil died before flowering).
🐷🇨🇳 China’s “pig skyscraper” model is going international with an expansion in Vietnam. Driven by land scarcity, labour shortages and concerns about epidemics such as swine fever, these 26-storey-high buildings can host thousands of pigs.
⚠️🌍 The Iran conflict is causing a severe disruption to global fertiliser supply, with 35% of global urea exports and 45% of sulphur exports normally passing through the Strait of Hormuz. Analysts warn this could be worse than the 2022 Ukraine shock, with potential dire consequences for the most vulnerable populations, potentially leading to hunger and famine.
