Recently, we dedicated a newsletter to how Gen Z treats appearances as a key component of wellness and why it opens opportunities for the food industry. You might think I’m getting obsessed with serums after too much time in Korea and Japan. Maybe. But it also seems the broader FoodTech ecosystem has been taking notes from K-Beauty.

Among the recent wave of startup bankruptcies, especially in the alternative protein space, what’s striking is how many “survivors” now announce moves into cosmetics, therapeutics, or materials.

A move that follows a long trend towards “functionalisation”

This is not entirely new. We’ve long had “dual-use” startups: one core tech, multiple applications. It is quite typical in situations where there is limited funding, and investors require solid business plans. So, founders pitch adjacent markets as potential additional revenue streams. Since funding fell in 2022, we’ve seen companies like Ecovative, which uses mycelium from biomass fermentation for leather and meat alternatives (an approach the startup still maintains today and which helped it raise $28M in late 2024). However, this is more the exception than the rule: at the end of the day, most startups focus on a single application (like Modern Meadow, which targeted both the meat and leather market, and then abandoned the former quite rapidly).

More recently, many alternative protein startups have switched from being “bulk protein” providers (trying to substitute animal proteins with a similar alternative being produced differently) to marketing their products as “functional ingredients”. These are designed to add something more than what animal protein has. This semantic pivot is a response to the growing concerns about their ability to scale production and achieve price parity with the original product they compete with.

Startups venturing into cosmetics

In the past couple of months, among the few bright spots in the alternative protein space, it was striking to see how many of them are announcing a move into a new category:

• IntegriCulture (Japan, cultivated meat), and Umami Bioworks (Singapore, cultivated seafood) announced a partnership to develop cosmetics using fish cell culture.
• Uncommon Bio, a former cultivated-meat player, pivots to biotherapies while Meatable acquires its meat IP. Same cell engineering skills, but very different markets and an ecosystem more used to long timelines.
• Geltor (USA), which in 2020 communicated on the need for a reliable source of animal-free proteins (with an aim towards collagen for dual food/cosmetics applications), just raised funds for the development of polypeptides targeting the beauty and wellness markets.
• ÄIO (Estonia), which develops fats through fermentation, announced a €1M grant to focus on personal care fats

Bottom line: the same platforms (cell culture, precision fermentation,…) are being re-deployed to markets with viable paths for:

• Profitability due to a much more favourable mix between scale requirements (you need only a fraction of what would be required in food applications) and pricing is viable
• Regulatory clarity: claims can be tested clinically, and approvals are clearer
• Innovation pull: acclaimed in cosmetics and therapeutics, much less so in food, notably now with the rising concerns around UPF and regulation.

Food startups are right to move into those markets… leaders should follow

These moves are far from unprecedented, but they are becoming increasingly frequent. They are driven by all the factors mentioned above and by the current funding environment. From the FoodTech ecosystem’s perspective, this is healthy: de-risking core technologies in adjacent categories accelerates acceptability (both from the consumer and regulatory), helps to build manufacturing capabilities, and proves out claims. Ideally, many of these startups will keep food as a goal, even if it sits on the sidelines for now. When the time is right, they can bring the expertise to our ecosystem.

For large leading companies, this has a double meaning:

1 – Food × Beauty/Wellness is real: as already mentioned here, the link is strengthening. Companies need to engage in that space (and by that, I don’t mean by only putting more protein and collagen in each and every product).

2 – The space for innovation is expanding rather than shrinking: if innovation in cosmetics and materials can come from food, the reverse is also true. This is undoubtedly the case for medium to long-term disruptive technologies.

In a word, if you want to discuss how to enter the food market as a cosmetics/health company or how to explore the “beauty is wellness” trend as a food company, give us a call!