Following our DigitalFoodLab’s report on the European FoodTech, we have updated our list of the 50 most interesting European FoodTech (the 2023 list is available here).

Each year, we aim to make our process even more thorough and rigorous. First, from the huge pool of 3,500+ active FoodTech startups in Europe, we select those that have raised significant funding (depending on their categories) over the past three years and rank them using the following questions:

• Trend: is the startup surfing on key trends identified by DigitalFoodLab?
• Funding or profitability: Is there enough money to go to the next level?
• Hype: Can it communicate its service or product well enough to attract interest?
• Exit potential: can it realistically become either a unicorn (become a leader and go through an IPO) or be acquired in less than five years

Here is the mapping of the 50 startups for 2024:

The TOP50 European Startups

AGTECH

• AgTech startups with a strong focus on animal-feeding using insects: [new] Protix, InnovaFeed
• Agriconomie, the B2B marketplace for agriculture supplies such as fertilizers, seeds, spare parts, workshop equipment, and crop protection products
• Tropic Biosciences, the leader in the development of novel high-performing commercial tropical crop varieties and traits, using cutting-edge genetic editing technologies
• [new] The bio-input company Aphea.bio
• The modular vertical farming startup IGS
• [new] The farming robot startup Ecorobotix
• Moa Technology, which works on novel herbicide modes of action
• The soil carbon platforms Agreena and [new] Xfarm

FOODSERVICE

• Deliverect, a solution that integrates online orders from food delivery channels into restaurants’ POS to improve their operational flow
• Choco, the app that connects food suppliers and restaurants on one global platform
• Flipdish, which helps on-demand food businesses create branded food ordering systems, websites, and apps
• Clone (formerly Not So Dark), a creator of exclusively online brands dedicated to food delivery platforms
• [new] Soul-K, which creates semi-prepared food ingredients and complete prepared meals for professionals
• [new] The SME’s canteen Foodles

FOODSCIENCE

• Huel, the leading European meal replacement startup
• Companies in the cellular agriculture sector: Mosa Meat, the Dutch startup working on clean meat, Gourmey, which aims at replicating foie gras from duck cells, [new] Bluu Seafood, which works on seafood and [new] Food Brewer, which produces coffee, fat and cocoa
• Companies using precision fermentation: [new] Bon Vivant, which produces milk proteins; [new] Onego Bio for egg proteins; [new] Planet-a-food for cocoa-free chocolate
• The plant-based companies Planted Foods, This, Heura and Umiami
• Solar Foods, which produces an entirely new kind of nutrient-rich protein using only air and electricity as the main resources
• 21st.bio, a Danish bioproduction startup focused on scaling up the manufacture of proteins and peptides
• The CPG startups Waterdrop (dissolvable cubes), Air-Up (a drinking system) and Koro (a long-lasting food brand)
• [new] Infinite Roots which produces sustainable foods from the roots of mushrooms using fermentation
• [new] Bactolife, which creates ingredients and proteins that help people live better
• [new] Moolec Science, which works on molecular farming

SUPPLY CHAIN

• Too Good To Go, an anti-squandering app that allows users to recover unsold merchants at low prices, at closing
• Phenix, the French startup which aims at ending food waste with a set of solutions for the whole food value chain
• Relex, a supply chain & retail planning platform

CONSUMER TECH

• The personalisation nutrition startup Zoe
• Jow, which helps customers to do their grocery shopping. according to what they like to eat

DELIVERY

• The leading new retailer startups: Rohlik (Czech Republic), Oda (Norway), Matsmart (Sweden), Picnic (Netherlands), [new] Mathem (Sweden), [new] Crisp (Netherlands) and [new] Modern Milkman (UK)
• Gousto, the leading meal kit startup
• HungryPanda, a Chinese food and grocery delivery company