FH Ventures: alt-meat and seafood

Keeping today's email and intro brief as we're busy ramping up to the FoodHack Summit next week!

We'll be taking a break from the Ventures email next Thursday - but you're always welcome to view the 100+ startups raising on FoodHack today.

For those attending, see you very soon, and in the meantime check out who's attending below:

Onto 4 new deals of the week

🐟 Happy Ocean Foods

HQ: GermanyRaising: €2.5M - Valuation: €10M EURExisting investors: Blue Horizon Ventures and prolific German Angel investorsStatus: Searching LeadFounders: Julian Hallet, Robin Drummond

Pitch: "Happy Ocean Foods develops plant-based seafood which delivers an authentic tasting experience and a similar nutritional profile compared to real seafood. Our first product is a plant-based shrimp."

Traction:

• B2B:/Gastronomy: 150 L'Osteria POS, Chef's Culinar listing, several restaurants

• B2C/Retail: Knuspr.de, Edeka (500 POS)

• Revenue: 200k total revenue

Competition: Hooked Foods, Betta Fish, Revo Foods, Vegan Zeastar, Good Catch, New Wave Foods

+ Learn More / View Deck / Request Intro (sign up/sign in required)

♻️ Foodloop (Attending FH Summit)

HQ: United Kingdom Raising: £300k GBP - Valuation: TBDExisting investors: Carbon13 Venture BuilderStatus: Round newly opened Founders: Frankie Fox, Abi-Aspen Glencross, Wesley Yland

Pitch: "Foodloop is a B2B ingredients business which upcycles food & drink manufacturing by-products into new ingredients for the future of the alternative proteins industry"

Traction: 

• We are engaged with major food and drink manufacturers on finding ways to valorise their by-products.

• We have 2 pilots in progress and 10 collaboration partners.

• We have an academic collaboration project with Wageningen University

Competition: MOA, Renewal Mill, Rise, Proeon, Evergrain, Grainstone

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👄 Chewb AB

HQ: SwedenRaising: $850k USD - Valuation: $6M USDExisting investors: Wellstreet, Nyvik Invest, BellbirdStatus: Round newly opened Founders: Abtin Soltanpour, Farzad Amir RiaziPitch: "We created Sweden’s only chewing gum factory from scratch, designed to reinterpret and revitalize chewing gum for the modern age and accelerate the phase-out of chewable plastics.""Traction: 

• Growth to 60 stores within the first few months of 2022

• Fantastic product feedback when we're on exibitions/fairs

• Centrally listed at Dagab from May 2022, one of Swedens largest grocery chains

Competition: True Gum, Humble Co, Chicza, Extra, Stimorol, V6, Zinq, Peppersmith, Chewsy+ Learn More / View Deck / Request Intro (sign up/sign in required)

 🌱 More Foods (Attending FH Summit)

HQ: IsraelRaising: $6M USD - Valuation: TBDExisting investors: BiomeatStatus: Searching LeadFounders: Leonardo MarcovitzPitch: "More Foods’ meats feature short ingredient lists, free from all major allergens. Using food production waste, the startup is targeting sustainable production methodologies alongside improved human health"Traction:

• Validated large scale production

• Patent pending

• Already started sales

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

🐟 Revo Foods (Attending FH Summit)

HQ: ViennaRaising: €15M EUR - Valuation: -Existing investors: Hazelpond Capital, Alberd Schmidbauer (Biogena), Daan Luining (Meatable) & others.Status: 70% of round raised.Founders: Robin Simsa, Theresa Rothenbücher, Manuel Lachmayr

Pitch: "Revo Foods develops and produces plant-based seafood alternatives using 3D-printing technology."Traction:

• Launched 1st Product: Revo Smoked Salmon Slices to retail.

• Already sell our products in 15 european countries and have a high growth traction.

• Finalized & patented new print head design.

Competition: Hooked, Kuleana, Good Catch, Odontella, Vegan Zeastar

+ Learn More / View Deck / Request Intro(sign up/sign in required)

Raising on FoodHack

🧫 Tiamat - Replacing animal-based reagents with plant-based biomolecules for cellular agriculture, regenerative medicine and vaccines. Deck hereAllocation open - Express Investment Interest

🍔 Stealth Manufacturing co. - Launching a plant-based, healthy fast food company that will hit on the trend of whole-food, plant-based offerings and convenience.Allocation full - Join The Wait List

🦠 Stealth Fermentation co. - Producing biomass from extremely fast growing bacteria, with potential applications in food and feed. Allocation open - Express Investment Interest

🖨 Deal of the week: Mooji Meats (FH Portfolio Co.) - the YC startup that just raised $3 million in a round featuring The Good Startup, Collaborative Fund, Lever VC, AgFunder and us (FoodHack) 👋

Harvard spin-out and Y combinator company Mooji Meats textures plant-based meat and cultured meat - think of turning ground meat into an authentic steak. They have built a highly scalable 3D printing process that overcomes today's trade-off between authentic textures and scalability, tapping into an $1 trillion market opportunity.

🍎 Natural Preservatives: Thanks to a host of pioneering startups, add to the list with a raft of new, natural ways to preserve foods - whether that’s silk protein, cellulose or simply activating a vegetable’s inbuilt defence mechanism. Full deep dive here inc. 2x case studies (FoodHack+)

💡 Poll-on-a-Poll from Discord members about what stage they're investing in and what drives them to make an investment decision.TLDR: Most are investing into pre-seed / seed startups and look at team and traction when deciding. But then again - do early stage companies really have any traction? 🤷‍♂️

👀 Related: This good read by Matt Turck about the state of VC, rounds, valuations, capital and what this all means for startups moving forward.

In my circles - I'm hearing LP appetite is slowing too and raising a fund isn't as easy as this time last year. Agree/Disagree?

TLDR: > Good time are over, portfolio markups are bad, venture funding appetite slows.> Especially hitting hard in: US venture, Growth stage. > Safest (today): Seed Stage, Europe.

7 Selected Pitches

50+ companies applied to pitch at the Summit, here's the selected 7.

From cultivated seafood to sustainable alternatives to palm oil, it's a great batch of early-stage startups that will all be raising at the time of the pitch.

p.s. we'll be investing $100k into the top selected pitch. Reply to commit $5k+ to the prize pool

Bit of Fun

Thanks for reading today's edition, it wasn't my best, but I'll do better next time, promise 🙏

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.