FH Ventures: alt eggs and growth factors

IMO the biggest threat to European FoodTech today is founders relocating to the US.

See: Mooji Meats (ex-DE), Daring Foods (ex-UK), Tiamat (ex-BE) and countless others.

Why? There's more opportunity, favorable regulations, huge market and an abundance of talent and funding available to grow their business.

Plus the American dream and all that 🦅

What I think Europe needs to really become a leader:- Easier access to non-dilutive grants (seriously, have you tried applying to these?)- Nurture, attract and retain the best technical talent here.- Set up government funded infrastructure and affordable lab space.- Restructure the painful Novel Food regulations to be more startup friendly.- Reduce bureaucracy around fundraising (looking at you Germany / Netherlands 👀)

All that said - European FoodTech is on the rise per Digital Food Lab - but pats on the back aside, who really wants to be #2?

Onto 4 new deals of the week

🥚 Crafty Counter

HQ: United States Raising: $1M USD - Valuation: $9M USDExisting investors: Angel Round. Status: Round newly openedFounders: Hema Reddy

Pitch: "Crafty Counter makes nutritious plant based foods crafted on the kitchen counter with whole food ingredients and brought to market leveraging cutting edge food science and technology. With disruptive product line such WunderEggs, Crafty Counter is ushering in a third era of plant-based foods."

Traction:

• Rolling WunderEggs nationwide with Whole Foods as exclusive launch partner, followed by Sprouts, Wegmans, and several natural grocery stores.

• Developed early prototypes of poached eggs and fried eggs in proprietary production line.

• FH Note: According to our trusted sources "the most phenomenal plant-based product I've tried".

Competition: Zero Egg, Yo! Egg, Evo Foods, OsomeFood, Nabati

+ Learn More / View Deck / Request Intro (sign up/sign in required)+ Invest $5k and up via FoodHack Allocation (accredited angles only)

🧫 Tiamat

HQ: United States Raising: $2M USD - Valuation: $18M USD Cap Existing investors: True Ventures, Social Impact Capital, Cantos CapitalStatus: Searching LeadFounders: France-Emmanuelle Adil

Pitch: "Replacing animal-based reagents with plant-based biomolecules for cellular agriculture, regenerative medicine and vaccines. This Belgian start-up moved to the US and now operates two facilities producing growth factors and other biomolecules and signed proof of concept collaborations with exciting cellular agriculture companies."

Traction: 

• Operating two facilities with 1000 plants production running

• 500 mg of protein (hFGF-2) produced 

• Working on proprietary vectors to increase yield in Q2 2022. 

• Expressed 3 more proteins (all for cultivated meat)

• Signed PoC for a specific protein with Cellular Agriculture company

Competition: Future Fields, Integriculture, Bright Biotech, Multus Media

+ Learn More / View Deck / Request Intro (sign up/sign in required)+ Invest $5K and up via FoodHack Allocation (accredited angels only)

🍳 The Very Food Co.

HQ: FranceRaising: €1M EUR - Valuation: TBDExisting investors: Big Idea VenturesStatus: In DD with potential leadsFounders: Arnaud Delacour, Oscar CastellaniPitch: "Developing plant-based alternatives to egg and dairy products in culinary applications. We address the foodservice industry exclusively. We have 4 products that we are currently testing in food service in Paris with a market launch planned for 2023."Traction: 

• August 2021: Nomelet v1 pre-launch with pre-production of 150L / 300 bottles.

• December 2021: Nomelet and Véritable featured at Big Idea Tasting in Paris.

• Since January 2022: Development of improved formulations fitted to large-scale industrialization.

Competition: (Alt-Dairy): Flora, Alpro, Schlagfix - (Alt-Egg): Zero Egg, JUST, OGGS+ Learn More / View Deck / Request Intro (sign up/sign in required)

 🐕 Petaluma

HQ: United StatesRaising: $2M USD - Valuation: $12M USDExisting investors: Mars Petcare, Michelson Found AnimalsStatus: Searching LeadFounders: Caroline Buck, Garrett WymorePitch: "Petaluma replaces resource-intensive animal ingredients with plant-based alternatives that require far less land, water, and greenhouse gas emissions. Backed by science and formulated by veterinarians, Petaluma provides all the nutrients dogs need for a healthy and balanced diet."Traction:

•  Launched in June 2021 with very positive customer feedback from ~1K customers

• 70% conversion to a recurring subscription with $600+ average lifetime spend

Competition: Vdog, Open Farm, Wild Earth, Jiminy's, Chippin+ Learn More / View Deck / Request Intro (sign up/sign in required)

+ Round Updates

🍭 Inulox - Developing an active food ingredient that converts 30% of ingested sugar from foods into a vegetable fibre after consumption.Update: $5k ticket open via FH Allocation. Profile here.

🧀 De Novo Dairy - Using precision fermentation to produces premium human immuno-proteins that are essential to infant immune development.Update: 30% of round now subscribed. Profile here.

🍫 Seminal Biosciences - Novel bioengineering platform for cocoa-free chocolates.Update: Re-structured round - targeting $2.5M raise. Profile here.

💡 In other news - we've pooled together $60k from the network as an investment prize for the top pitch at the FoodHack Summit. Aiming for $100k close - reply to soft commit $5k+ 

Fund Spotlight: Cultivate Next 🌯

Big Boss: Curt Garner (CTO)Founded: 2022HQ: California, USASize: $50 millionFocus: "In a bid to position its brand as more tech-forward — and, in the process, foster new culinary innovations — Chipotle announced the launch of Cultivate Next, a venture fund that will offer a tranche of $50 million and focus on tech companies in the “seed to Series B” stages and focussed on Restaurant Tech."👀 Portfolio includes: n/a

🍤 Deal of the week: CellMeat - the South Korean cellular ag startup that just raised $8.1M Series A funding to ramp up its cell-based shrimp pilot production and diversify into other cultivated seafood products. 

Late last year, CellMEAT announced the development of its own fetal bovine serum (FBS)-free cell culture medium. Its animal-free cell culture technology would help bring the shrimp meat cost down to approximately $20 or less per kilogram, per TechCrunch. 

🎨  Novel Dyes: So much of what we eat revolves around what colour it is - even if we don’t consciously think about it. That’s why food colourants, both natural and artificial, are a huge ($2BN+) market. Full deep dive inc. 2x case studies (FoodHack+)

💰 GHG Emissions: Per the latest Agfunder 2022 report: downstream investments received $32.1bln vs upstream only $18.9bln. As noted here by Antony Yousefian of Bx Food (who btw is raising now) - "If we are really serious about transforming the food system, then funding and investment need to focus on solving the problems upstream. The majority is in the production (how we grow food), it is less about waste, plastic packaging or moving food around from a to be in an electric vehicle."

🇩🇰 Great Insights from Discord member Ziggy of KALE United on reasons why ReMilk might have picked Denmark as the location for their new 750k square foot precision fermentation facility (aka: the worlds biggest).

👀 Hot take: Agree / Disagree? Let me know your juicy takes.

Final 50 Tickets 🎟

Do I really need to pitch why you should attend?

There's already 450 of us FoodTech entrepreneurs, geek and investors attending.

Grab a ticket before we sell out or use this to convince your boss.

Bit of Fun

Saw this on Linkedin, not a meme but good lord it could be. 

Thanks for reading today's edition, here's something random that I didn't know where to put but still thought it was worth a mention.

Until next time,

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.