FH Ventures: 3 overlooked summer startups

Some of you had really strong opinions against last weeks intro "The market leaders have already been picked".

So after thinking it over, my new stance is "The market leaders are being established - but can be leapfrogged by up-and-comers with differentiated tech and great execution".

Not as catchy, sure, but hopefully more democratic.

This week we're spotlighting 3 hot and 3 overlooked startups which were previously featured. For those

🦠 Wild Microbes (8 VC intros last week)

📍 HQ: USA💸 Raising: $3.5M USD🙋‍♂️ CEO: Tim Wannier (Stanford Grad 🎓)👀 Existing investors: n/a💡 Pitch: "Wild Microbes is building a catalog of exceptional microbes for bio production. We source the best microbes and then domesticate them for the food and materials sectors."📈 Traction: LOI signed for microbe sourcing, $1M in SAFEs raised, advanced discussions with 6 potential customers.

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🦑 Tandem Repeat (HackVentures joins the round)

📍 HQ: USA💸 Raising: $2M USD🙋‍♂️ CEO: Melik Demirel👀 Investors this round: Climate Capital Collective, Prithvi Ventures, Senel Family Office, HackVentures💡 Pitch: "Tandem Repeat is a synthetic biology and materials science company that eliminates plastic pollution and minimizes the dependence on animal based products with a unique all-natural performance fabric that is sustainable, strong, flexible and self-healing."📈 Traction: 4 LOIs/ recommendation letters from major fashion players. $2.2M Department of Energy Grant. 5 granted patents from penn state.

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🧫 Alt Atlas (Newly Opened)

📍 HQ: United Kingdom💸 Raising: $500k USD🙋‍♀️ CEO: Sofia Giampaoli👀 Existing investors: Big Idea Ventures, Animoca Brands💡 Pitch: "AI-powered ingredients to make cultivated meat a reality. The company is creating a machine learning software platform that supplies functional ingredients and solutions for the alternative meat and dairy industry.."📈 Traction: 6 LOIs signed, 2 proofs of concept and filed 1 patent (for the AI software applied to food and a novel reprogramming strategy to produce stem cell lines).

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👨‍🌾 Offset AI (Searching Lead)

📍 HQ: United States💸 Raising: $4M USD🙋‍♀️ CEO: Adrian Kerester (Stanford grad)👀 Existing investors: n/a.💡 Pitch: "Offset AI delivers actionable acre-by-acre insights at a low cost by deploying a large sensor network, tagging the captured data, and using AI to deliver growing insights. We remove barriers to adoption by providing hardware and insights as an easy to use subscription based service."📈 Traction: Pilot program with upscale Napa Vineyard. Licensing agreement with hardware provider. 10x customer waitlist that represents $250k ARR.

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🧪 Ergo Biosciences (Searching Lead)

📍 HQ: Argentina💸 Raising: $3M USD🙋‍♂️ CEO: Alejandro Barbarini👀 Existing investors: Label Ventures💡 Pitch: "Biotech startup focused on the production of complex animal proteins by plant cell fermentation for plant-based food applications. Our platform is able to produce complex animal proteins, with post translational modifications as phosphorylation, glycosylation, prosthetics groups by using plant cells fermentation."📈 Traction: Co-development with global food players. Patented plant-based myoglobin. Patented plant based kappa-casein.

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🔎 Tocco (5 Investor Intro's last week)

📍 HQ: France💸 Raising: €500K EUR🙋‍♂️ CEO: Leon Ge👀 Existing investors: Angel round: Accel (via scout); Lightspeed Ventures (Partner); EIT Climaccelerator; Quest Ventures (Partner); Cofounder Printify; CEO of Transport Jumeau💡 Pitch: "Companies suffer from complexity in supplier search and sourcing operations as well as difficulty in managing sustainability and climate in the supply chain - Tocco is building the sustainable infrastructure for SME sourcing in Europe"📈 Traction: Facilitated one transaction between supplier and buy worth of $13'000.

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Overwhelmed by Deal Flow?

Join the FoodHack Syndicate where we select the top startups, diligence them, win the allocations, and invest together with tickets from $5k and up. There's 150+ of us already investing - from exited founders to heads of department across Big Food.

Currently closing some Stealth startups not mentioned here 👀Apply to join

💰 Fund Spotlight: Collab SOS

👋 Leadership Team: Craig Shapiro, Sophie Bakalar📆 Founded: 2021📍 Location: Global💰 Fund Size: $200M💡 The idea: “Invests in Series A and Series B companies fueling a more sustainable economy across materials, ingredients, energy, and supply chains. Our criteria for investing is simple: Is your product or service better for the planet, without asking consumers to sacrifice?."👀 Portfolio inc: AlgiKnit, Protein Evolution, BOLT, Square Roots, Natural Fiber Welding

💡 3 Good Reads & 1 Question

🏗 Scaffolding: If cultivated meat is ever to reach widespread adoption - as many predict - price parity will be crucial. And scaffolding that’s simple and scalable could be a big part of the solution.

In the same way that scaffolding provides support to a crumbling building. Cultured meat scaffolding is necessary to give structure and texture to the end product. And scientists, startups and B2B suppliers have been busy experimenting with a variety of solutions, from plant-based polymers to nanofibres spun by electrodes…

More on that here.

💸 Funding slowdown? According to the latest data from CB Insights State Of Venture report - valuations are actually up. Global venture funding saw $108.5B raised across 7,651 deals last quarter — marking the biggest quarterly percentage drop in deals (and the second-largest drop in funding) in a decade. Despite this eye-opening decline, funding and deal totals remain above levels last seen in 2020.

💡 People fear what they don't know - great tweet by Steve Molino (Principal at Clear Current Capital) which summarizes a fantastic article by Green Queen Media, which looks at how precision fermentation has been around for decades, and most of us are eating foods that contain ingredients made using the technology on a daily basis.

❓ Great question in the Discord Group by Brad Pruente of Prime Movers Lab. Some of us are starting to crowd source this data. Reply if you want to contribute.

😅 Bit of Fun

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Thanks for reading today's edition - some of you have been asking how to skip the wait list and access the Ventures platform today - just send us 1-2 good startups you're looking at and we'll grant you access.

And please let me know what did you think of today's edition?

😁 Love It 😐 Meh 😕 Hate it

Arman Anatürk Co-Founder & CEO @FoodHack (HackVentures)

Disclaimer: ‍Investing in startups and early stage businesses involves risks, including illiquidity, lack of dividends, loss of investment and dilution. This communication is intended for experienced investors, with sufficient experience and knowledge to understand the processes and risks involved. Do your DD, make your own decisions, invest aware, your capital is at risk.