🥩 🇺🇸 Upside Foods, the most well-funded startup using cellular agriculture to create meat alternatives, has just received regulatory approval. It will soon be able to sell its chicken products in the US. This is the first company to reach such a step in the US (a couple have already been authorized in Singapore). This is a game-changing moment for the industry. The following steps should be a public launch and the big challenge: scaling production!
🍎 🇺🇸 Butter, a US-based startup, raised $9M for its management system that helps food distributors to run their business while keeping up with regulations.
🧬 🇳🇱 🇨🇭 Cradle, a Dutch and Swiss startup, raised €5.5M for its synthetic biology technology which reverses engineered proteins to make them compliant with desired properties.
📉 💥 Bad news, layoffs and failures keep happening:
- Oatly, the Swedish oat milk giant, announced layoffs after disappointing results.
- Fifth Season is a vertical farming startup which is shutting down.
- Nuro, the startup behind the autonomous delivery robot, is laying off 20% of its staff.
🌱 🇺🇸 Freight Farms, a US startup, raised $17.5M for its vertical farms made of containers.
🐄 🇳🇴 Nofrence, a Norwegian startup, raised €12.3M for its virtual fences for livestock (when animals cross the border, a sound is emitted).
🍊 🇮🇱 Clarifruit, an Israeli startup, raised $12M for its software that helps to manage fruit and vegetable quality control along the value chain.
🧑🍳 🇺🇸 Impulse, a US startup, raised $20M for its futuristic-looking induction stovetops. Using batteries makes induction much more affordable (due to power limitations, many kitchens would not be suited for a traditional induction stovetop). Entrepreneurs and investors often ignore appliances, but the whole food value chain is ripe for disruption and innovation.
