FH Ventures: 5 new startups raising

Hi there,

The ventures email will take a quick break next week as I'll be out cycling in the South of France.

Yes, that's the most cliche VC-summer thing I could have said.

Anywho - If you're keen to connect with one of the startups featured below (or on the platform) make sure to put your intro requests in today / tomorrow. 

And if you're in South of France next week, lets race 🚲

Now onto 5 new deals of the week - from RTC meal capsules to omnichannel grab and go.

🍲 ANINA Culinary Art (Searching Lead)

📍 HQ: Israel💸 Raising: $7M USD🙋‍♀️ CEO: Anat Natan👀 Existing investors: UNOVIS, AgFunder, The kitchen hub, UV 💡 Pitch: "Creating unique RTC meal capsules that are 100% natural, rich in vegetables and nutrients, easy to cook, designed by designers, and made from fresh, delicious food waste. ANINA dresses food using a unique technology, creating the future of a healthy culinary consumer’s experience."📈 Traction: - As of May 2022, we are selling a variety of recipes in the Israeli market through DTC/online, Premium store, and Grab & Go under the ANINA brand.

+ Learn More / View Deck / Request Intro

🌎 Earthi (Closing Soon)

📍 HQ: United States💸 Raising: $1.5M USD🙋‍♂️ CEO: Andrew Shein👀 Existing investors: OCA Ventures and Angel Investors💡 Pitch: "Earthi is an omnichannel grab and go concept serving plant-based Flexitarian focused foods to target the healthy and mainstream consumer / convenience meal market. Earthi's recipes were created alongside a James Beard nominated chef with Michelin experience as well as a New York Times best-selling nutritionist -- so they are bold in flavor, nutrient packed, and have a multi-day shelf life stability."📈 Traction:- Sold into 3 stores in Chicago over the course of 8 weeks- $190,000 annualized revenue per store (nearly $600k between the 3)- 36% repeat purchase rate over limited sales periods- 9/10 average rating from customers (QR code on bowls)- New Venture Challenge Finalist and recipient of $170,000

+ Learn More / View Deck / Request Intro

🏭 Extracellular (Featured Previously - Adjusted Raise)

📍 HQ: United Kingdom💸 Raising: £750k GBP🙋‍♂️ CEO: Will Milligan👀 Existing Investors: n/a💡 Pitch: "Extracellular accelerates cultivated meat development by providing scale-up capabilities and enabling IP. We provide scale-up and development services to generate revenue within 6 months. We invest in innovation to generate enabling, licensable IP such as species-specific media formulations."📈 Traction: - More than £500k in equipment provided to Extracellular by biotech companies. - Fully operational labs in Bristol, capable of processing 200L mammalian processes. - LOI for £485k for scale up and development support. - Collaborations with leading cultivated meat suppliers.

+ Learn More / View Deck / Request Intro

🍲 Pantree (Featured Previously - Secured Lead)

📍 HQ: United Kingdom💸 Raising: £1M GBP🙋‍♀️ CEO: Ana Martins👀 Existing investors: Ascension Ventures (New)💡 Pitch: "Pantree is on a mission of bringing sustainable convenience to people’s homes. We are launching the UK & Europe's first Residential Micro Markets, providing residential communities on-demand access to foods, snacks, beverages and convenience items 24/7."📈 Traction: - Pantree is showing early signs of product market fit, currently onboarding one of the UK’s leading property managers to launch the product across their Build-to-Rent portfolio and in advanced negotiations with 3 other leading BTR players in the UK.

+ Learn More / View Deck / Request Intro

🍕 Purezza (Closing Soon - £500k Left)

📍 HQ: United Kingdom💸 Raising: £5M GBP🙋‍♂️ CEO: Tim Barclay👀 Existing investors: MVK Group.💡 Pitch: "Purezza is Europe's leading plant-based Pizzeria, with 5 sites across the UK and a growing retail presence. Purezza is a pioneer in the vegan pizza space, and has been named amongst the best Vegan restaurants in the world - and beyond this, there is a lack of quality vegan pizza/cheese options in Retail shelves."📈 Traction: - 5 sites, including 3 new during Covid- 25% EBITDA margin in restaurants- Profitable business across restaurants and retail

+ Learn More / View Deck / Request Intro

🔥 Popular Last Week

🏭 Boston Bioworks (9 VC intro's) - Helping alternative protein companies ferment at scale. Strain evaluation, fermentation / downstream processing scale up, and tech transfer to manufacturing organizations.Raising: $5M USD

🧫 Umami Meats (2 VC intro's) - Our cultivated seafood production system enables a stable, resilient, local supply of seafood free from mercury, antibiotics, microplastics, and ocean pollutants.Raising: $6M USD

🛒 Oja (2 VC intro's) - Oja is an online supermarket for ethnic groceries and goods building out the ‘Amazon of Cultural Communities’. We are re-shaping the ‘ethnic’ grocery shopping experience starting focused in one cultural segment; African and Caribbean groceries and goods.Raising: £2M GBP

👨🏼‍🍳 Funding Spotlight: Root Global

👋 Founders: Eric Oancea, Maurice Hensl📆 Founded: 2022💰 Round Size: €2.5M Pre-Seed💡 The idea: “Our food system is responsible for over 30% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Root’s software platform enables manufacturers, FMCGs, and retail in the food and beverage sector to centralise activity data across their supply chain, calculate carbon scores and guide business decisions to mitigate GHG emissions in the future.."👀 Investor inc: Project A Ventures, Nucleus Capital and several angel Investors

💡 5 Good Reads

🍭 The Sweet Stuff: The need to please consumers who want healthier alternatives without giving up their sweet fix is leading to more and more clean-label sugar substitutes coming onto the market.

The demand for clean label sweeteners, often based on real sugar, is creating new market categories and opportunities for food manufacturers, brands and suppliers.

Companies are dreaming up new creations to satisfy consumers’ appetite for sweets - from restructured sugar crystals to fibre-rich enzyme technologies that dissolve sugar in the body.

More on that here.

👀 Angel Spotlight: As a teen entrepreneur turned seasoned founder, Ryan Grant Little has quietly become on of Europe's most active angel investors in FoodTeach - backing 16 (and counting) startups inc. Arkeon, Forsea Foods, Hyfe Foods, Mooji Meats and more.

We chatted with Ryan reveals who share more about what inspired him to enter the alt protein industry, how he’s navigating the sector's white space and what he’s excited by next.

🗒 Carbon Wishlist: Climate VC Lower Carbon Capital put out their "Caron Removal Startups Wishlist" which includes a roundup of areas (some moonshots) that they'd like to see and fund in the coming years.

📊 Soy-enemy? The world loves to hate on soy-based alt proteins - but the data shows another story. Today 77% of global soy production goes to animal feed with an estimated conversion 7% efficiency of feed-to-food. Maybe D2C soy that skips the animal might not be so bad after-all. 

🧀 Casein pains: Maya Benami is one of the smartest people I know in FoodTech, and her summary of "why it’s complicated / hard to scale up production of casein (precision fermentation)" is the best put explanations I've seen.

🤔 Nice to have < Essentials. Sometimes you gotta stop and ask yourself - do I feel accomplished after spending a year building a virtual yacht for my metaverse, or could I be doing something more impactful with my time? 

❌ Can't tax my gains if I have none. Not sure if this is a joke or not - but how are we all feeling about carried interest being taxed as regular income. I think this is the right response. 

😅 Bit of Fun

Junior associate at their first board meeting after being passed the torch that no one else wanted.

Thanks for reading today's edition - this weeks newsletter was "extra salty", boarder-line preachy - guess the break in South of France is well timed. 

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.