FH Ventures: 5 new startups raising

Hi there,

This week I'm in Luxembourg doing the usual rounds and one thing I've come to love about this country is their ability to continuously dominate in emerging fields. 

In the 1960s it was steel.In the 1980's it was banking.In the 2000's it was fintech. And the future?

You wouldn't believe it, but its "space mining" and blockchain.

Something neighbouring countries can take from Luxembourg is their ability to constantly embrace the change, reimagine themselves and future proof their economy.

Now onto 5 new deals of the week - from sugars to pepperoni, petfood to seafood.

🍭 Biofect Innovations (Newly Opened)

📍 HQ: Canada💸 Raising: $1M USD🙋‍♂️ CEO: Ralph Christian Delos Santos👀 Existing investors: Government grants 💡 Pitch: "Sustainably bring high-value B2B protein ingredients to the food system, to support the creation of eco-conscious food products. Combining synthetic biology with fermentation technology, Biofect creates unique microbes capable of efficiently producing proteins that are structurally and functionally equivalent to those found in nature - without needing the actual plant or animal source."📈 Traction: - Recently graduated from the world-renowned ProVeg Incubator.- Developed a prototype of our protein-based sweetener.- Obtained a few LOIs from our early adopters.

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🍕 Jack & Bry (Closing Soon)

📍 HQ: United Kingdom💸 Raising: £6M GBP🙋‍♀️ CEO: Bryony Tinn-Disbury👀 Existing Investors: Beyond Impact, SFC Capital, Rubix Ventures, KM Capital💡 Pitch: "Jack & Bry are an award winning, UK based food-tech start-up creating gourmet, whole food plant-based meats and ingredients from jackfruit. Their products are cleaner, less processed and are driven by their commitment to create a more sustainable planet."📈 Traction: - Plant-based pizza topper market domination since late 2019 having sold over 50 million pepperoni slices (last counted Jan 2022). - Customers include Papa Johns throughout the entire UK and select European locations, Pizza Express, Zizzi, Prezzo to name a few.- Launched full range through Ocado and Vegan Kind Q1 2022 and have won multiple great taste awards for our Jackfruit Burger and Mince."

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🐟 Hooked Foods (Searching Lead)

📍 HQ: Sweden💸 Raising: €10M EUR🙋‍♂️ CEO: Tom Joohansson👀 Existing investors: Oysterbay Venture Capital, Brightly Ventures💡 Pitch: "At Hooked, we develop, market and sell delicious and healthy plant-based seafood to foodservice and grocery. We have a strong portfolio with innovations such as Toonish and Salmoonish in 76% of retailers in Sweden. After less than 12m in category, we are one of best rotating SKUs and we are now preparing to expand our success in Sweden to more European markets."📈 Traction: - Q2 revenue: 116k€ (+54% vs Q1)- Listed in 76% of retailers in Sweden- Rotation: 3.6 units/SKU/store/week (in line with big brand like Qourn & Oumph)- Signed distributor DACH, UK & Nordics

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🐕 OMNI Pet (FH Portfolio co.)

📍 HQ: United Kingdom💸 Raising: £5M GBP🙋‍♂️ CEO: Shiv Sivakumar👀 Existing investors: Trellis Road, Purple Orange Ventures, ProVeg, Brinc, FoodHack💡 Pitch: "OMNI is on a mission to become the number 1 health-led pet food brand that's better for dogs and better for the planet. Why? Feeding processed meats and cheap fillers has resulted in reduced life expectancy and poor quality of life for dogs."📈 Traction: - We've served over 150,000 meals to over 4,000 customers with over 73% joining as subscribers.- Of these we've retained over 35% in the long-term, 2 times higher than the industry average.- We've also secured a listing with a major retailer in the US. "

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🧀 Vacka (Newly Opened)

📍 HQ: Spain💸 Raising: €1.5M EUR🙋‍♂️ CEO: Luz Sanz 👀 Existing investors: Javier Marcos, Big Idea Ventures 💡 Pitch: "Design and elaborate plant-based analogs to cheese, in order to facilitate the implementation of a healthier and more sustainable diet in the general population. Thanks to our approach of combining the ancient processes of cheese making with 21st-century technology, we successfully manage to offer plant-based cheese alternatives that are tasty, healthy, and of high nutritional quality."📈 Traction: - Present in 400 points of sale and 150 restaurants.- We have multiplied our points of sale by a factor 10.- During the year 2021 approximately 22.000 products were produced with a total turnover of €119.000- In the year 2022 until mid-June more than 25.000 cheeses were produced with a turnover of €152.000, closing the month of May with a turnover of €35.000.

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🔥 Popular Last Week

🏭 Boston Bioworks (12 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 (3 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

🐟 Funding Spotlight: Loki Foods

👋 Founders: Chris McClure, Bjorn Adalbjornsson📆 Founded: 2021💰 Round Size: $650k Pre-Seed💡 The idea: “Icelandic startup Loki Foods is out to develop a line of realistic and nutritional alternative seafood products, including a whole-cut, plant-based white fish fillet alternative. The company claims their sustainable Atlantic cod analogue beats conventional fish meat on nutrition and cooks just like the real thing. The product also has the potential to help shift Iceland away from its domestic reliance on the fishing industry."👀 Investor inc: FoodHack, Sustainable Food Ventures, MGMT Ventures, VegInvest, Lifely VC and Kale United

💡 3 Good Reads

🚀 Venture Studio's provide everything a company needs from setup to launch and typically support beyond, too.

They’re often the ones who pinpoint an initial idea or seek out the founding scientists; they get involved in the nitty gritty of running a young company, providing support, advice and contacts; and crucially, they provide financial backing too.

In Food/Climate - there's already quite a few active in this sector (like Germany's FoodLabs or Israel's The Kitchen) and they're behind some of the industries rising stars.

More on that here.

👀 30+ Women Angels In FoodTech: It's no secret that women are underrepresented across the sector, so we're profiling 30 Female Food and ClimateTech angel investors who are at the forefront of funding breakthrough technologies that shape a better future for people and planet.Did we miss you from the list? reply to let us know! 

📊 Data: Interesting data from Arizona State University estimating the environmental impacts of 57,000 food products - tldr, it's what we all know, but backed by numbers. 

😅 Bit of Fun

Guess we'll be renaming ourselves to "Rambutan"

Thanks for reading today's edition!

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

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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.