💸 Funding News

🍄🇨🇭 Planetary, a Swiss startup, raised $28M (CHF 16M equity + CHF 6M credit) to scale both its mycoprotein production facility and its technology licensing platform

🫙🇨🇭 Cosaic, a Swiss startup formerly known as Cultivated Biosciences, raised $6M in a round led by DSM-Firmenich. It replaces dairy, egg, and industrial plant-based emulsifiers in a single ingredient.

🧀🇨🇦 AuX Labs, a Canadian startup, raised $4M to commercialise its cheese made with caseins created through precision fermentation. It is already in customer pilots in the US.

🥦🇸🇪 Nomio, a Swedish startup, raised $4M to scale its broccoli-derived performance shots. Their pre-workout drink, currently used by athletes, has been shown to reduce lactate by up to 12% during intense exercise.

☕🇪🇸 Incapto, a Spanish startup, raised €10M to scale its coffee-as-a-service platform, which combines in-house roasting, bean-to-cup machines and a digital subscription that optimises deliveries.

🍨🇺🇸 Frozen One, an American startup, raised $2M for its protein-rich ice cream brand (40g of proteins and less than 400 Kcal per pint).

🍝🇺🇸 Ripi, an American startup, raised $2.4M to scale its premium frozen stuffed pasta brand.

🥬🇺🇸 Afresh, an American startup, raised $34M for its fresh food and grocery ordering platform, now live in 12,500+ retail stores. It helps retailers reduce waste and improve sales through accurate predictions and order management. A good example of the overlooked supply chain revolution currently underway, which we recently highlighted in a dedicated insight.

🛒🇩🇪 VisioLab, a German startup, raised $11M to scale its self-checkout system for foodservice internationally. The system identifies packaged and unpackaged food by camera.

🍽️🇴🇲 Fascano, an Omani startup, raised $10M to expand its foodservice management platform across the Gulf region.

🌿🇭🇷 Fasal Bio, a Croatian startup, raised €7M for its composite material, made from renewable raw materials and compatible with standard thermoplastic processing.

🍬🇱🇹 Pentasweet, a Lithuanian startup, has broken ground on a €65M precision fermentation facility to build Europe’s first industrial plant for brazzein, a sweet protein that can be used as a sugar replacement.

⭐ Acquisitions, Regulation & Bankruptcies

🍽️🇨🇦 OpenTable has acquired Libro, the leading Canadian restaurant reservation and table management platform, to strengthen its presence in Quebec and Canada more broadly.

🥛🇬🇧🇧🇪 Tooru, a British wellness investor, has agreed to acquire Mylky, a Belgian startup selling at-home plant-based milk machines, for £12M.

🤖🇩🇪🇧🇪 Circus SE, a German food-robotics startup, is acquiring Alberts, a Belgian autonomous food-production system.

🫙🇨🇭🇬🇧 Hero Group, the Swiss food giant, has acquired The Gut Stuff, the London-based high-fibre gut health snacking brand.

🍌🇬🇧 Tropic, a British AgTech startup, has received regulatory approval for its non-browning banana in Japan and Brazil.

📊 Leading Companies & Macro Trends

🏫🇬🇧 The UK government has announced a full overhaul of school food standards in England, the first in over a decade, banning deep-fried foods and high-sugar items, replacing them with fruit and vegetables on the majority of school days. Resistance centres on cost: healthier meals are structurally more expensive, and the government’s claim that it can be done within existing budgets is contested.

🍼🇨🇭 Nestlé reported Q1 2026 sales growth of 3.5%, beating expectations, despite a 0.9% drag from a mass infant formula recall. Coffee sales, which grew by 9.3%, largely compensated and helped to support the new management team’s turnaround plan.

🥛🇫🇷 High protein is now “the number-one growth driver” globally for Danone, not just in Europe and the US. It reported Q1 2026 sales growth of 2.7%, in line with expectations but down sharply from Q4 2025, weighed by the same infant formula recall and Iran-war-related supply disruptions in the Middle East.

☕🇮🇹🇺🇸 La Marzocco, the 99-year-old Florentine espresso machine maker, is now fuelling a hot secondary resale market in the US, with used machines selling for $3,000 to $10,000 and collectors treating them as design objects, not just tools. The brand’s trajectory is a mirror of the US (and global) speciality coffee culture itself, as La Marzocco supplied the machines that helped Starbucks build the mass market, then became the counter-symbol of the third-wave independent café movement.