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9 notable deals and things to know this week (2024 – week #37)

Published on September 10, 2024

Startup news and deals

🇫🇷 ⚗️ Calyxia, a French startup, raised €35M for its alternatives to microplastics and microcapsules (a $5B market), notably in agriculture applications. Beyond their lasting presence, microplastics create environmental (and health) challenges.

 

🇮🇱 🌽  MNDL Bio, an Israeli startup, raised $2M for its gene optimisation platform.

 

🇧🇪 🧑‍🌾 Soil Capital, a Belgian startup, raised €15M for its platform, which helps farmers identify the best regenerative agriculture practices and receive financial rewards through the participation of large companies.

 

🇩🇰 🍞 Reduced, a Finnish startup, raised €8M for its upcycling technology, which transforms food and agriculture sidestreams into umami-flavouring ingredients.

🇺🇸 🍔 Motif FoodWorks, a US-based startup, that raised $345M in total since being founded in 2019 is closing down. It was facing a complicated IP battle with Impossible Foods (the plant-based meat company) for the patent of its heme ingredient (made through precision fermentation, which makes the burger “bleed” like real meat). Motif was once seen as the leader of a FaaS (food as a service) ecosystem where agrifood businesses could tap into their biotech capabilities to create new ingredients.

🇳🇿 🧑‍🔬 Safe Ag Systems, a New Zealand-based startup, raised $2.5M for its safety app that improves productivity while improving the safety of farmers while working with equipment or chemicals.

Regulation & public report

🇩🇰 🥛 21st.Bio, a Danish startup received a self-affirmed GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) status in the US for its whey protein produced through precision fermentation.

🇫🇮 🧁 Solar Foods, a Finnish startup, has obtained self-affirmed GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) status in the US for its Solein protein (made through “transforming” CO2 into proteins).

Industry news & trends

🇪🇸 🛵 Getir will be leaving Spain. Country after country, the presence of quick-commerce is vanishing in Europe.

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What we did:

  • Mapping of the AgTech ecosystem: startups, research regulators, and other leading companies.
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  • Analysis of the information to reveal the trends and a model to analyse eventual partners.
  • A workshop to validate the opportunities based on our recommendations.
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  • Mapping the different categories of innovations in AgTech that should be considered now to create long-term benefits for the business.
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Use case: project for a CPG company on the healthy ageing ecosystem

What we did:

  • Education of the board through a couple of workshops to define the perimeter
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  • Deep dives on each of the priority categories.
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Results:

  • Creating a consensus on which categories to prioritise and how to address them.
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What we do (ongoing mission on a subscription model):

  • Kick-off where we present an overview of the AgriFoodTech ecosystem to select with the client the categories to cover and for each, the level of information required.
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Results:

  • A clear, regular and evolutive tool to follow what is happening in terms of innovation on key topics.
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Use case: opportunity screening for an ingredient company

What we did:

  • Kick-off to define the perimeter of the ecosystem studied.
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  • Analysis of the trends on DigitalFoodLab’s trend curve and other relevant frameworks.
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Results:

  • Shared view of the innovation ecosystem for the client with a view of the trends to prioritize.
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Use case: scouting for an agriculture coop

What we did:

  • Kick-off to define the perimeter of the client, the goals of the scouting (partnerships) and the criteria on which startups should be evaluated.
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  • Identification of 20+ targets.
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  • DigitalFoodLab worked as a sparing partner during the acquisition process, notably to help design how the acquired startup could be integrated into the overall company’s strategy.

Results:

  • Different results from traditional M&A processes with a focus on the client’s innovation strategy.
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Use case: market due diligence on sugar alternatives

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  • Kick-off with the client to discuss its interest on this category, its expectations and existing level of information (notably on the target company).
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  • Clear view of the ecosystem and of the reasons to believe (or not) in each sub-category.
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