Global FoodTech investments in 2025
After bouncing back in 2024, investments are declining again
FoodTech startups raised $16B in 2024, a significant 25% increase compared to the $12.7B raised in 2023. Investments declined again in the first half of 2025 to $5.5B, with little hope that they will increase significantly by the end of the year.
AgriFoodTech investments have just gone back a decade in terms of volume and returned to 2015 levels. A new source of concern is the sharp decline in pre-seed and seed funding (investments in emerging startups): while investments rose overall in 2024, they declined by more than 31% for early-stage deals. While the average deal size is declining, what we observe is a steep decline in the number of deals.
The 2024 increase in funding was primarily due to delivery deals, and more specifically, to a handful of megadeals. As for the first half of 2025, the decrease is felt across all categories. Some ecosystems, such as alternative proteins, have seen investments almost come to a halt in the past few quarters.
In terms of geographical distribution, the contraction is not evenly distributed. The share of investments going to US-based startups is reaching its highest point ever at 59% for the first half of 2025. US FoodTech investments even rose in the first half of 2025 and could surpass last year’s. At the same time, Europe’s share is retreating to 12%, erasing all the progress made since 2021.
More positively, the current decline in funding is partially compensated by a stronger involvement of public players (notably through large investment plans in biotech) and large agrifood companies through partnerships. Also, brands are doing spectacularly well. Over the past year, we observed more than $10B in acquisition volume, with more than $6B being for innovative brands. In all cases, these had a wellness or healthy ageing element attached to them, showing the great appetite of larger companies for this topic.
