FH Ventures: Precision Dairy + Cultivated Fat

VC's: Help settle a debate for me - when deciding on an investment, do you need to meet the founder(s) IRL before making a final decision?

Reply:

🛩 - Yes, absolutely.🤷‍♂️ - Indifferent about it. 💻 - No, remote is great.Early results from our Discord are swaying heavily "remote ok" - but I know some of you here are more "traditionalists" and I'd be curious to know why.

Onto 5 new deals of the week

🧀 De Novo Dairy (Pre-seed featured last year)

HQ: Cape Town Raising: $5M USD - Valuation: $25M USD Existing investors: Big Idea Ventures, Sustainable Food Ventures, Pritvhi Ventures, CULT Food Sciences.Status: Searching LeadFounders: Jean Louwrens, Leah Bessa, Joni Symon, Richard Grieves

Pitch: "De Novo Dairy produces premium human immuno-proteins that are essential to infant immune development as well as recovery and general health in adults and the elderly. Using precision fermentation, we are able to produce these proteins in higher volumes and more cost-effectively than in nature."

Traction:

• Milestone #1: Expressed two proteins in three different hosts

• Milestone #2: Two provisional patents submitted for IP protection

• Milestone #3: Partnered with a European Dairy company for R&D product development as well as initial off-take of product.

Competition: Helaina, BIOMILQ, TurtleTree, Harmony.

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🧫 Cultimate Foods (Featured previously) 

HQ: GermanyRaising: €300k EUR - Valuation: €6M EUR (first close)Existing investors: ProVeg IncubatorStatus: Closing soonFounders: Eugenia Sague, George Zhelezr, Oskar Latyshev.Pitch: "Cultimate Foods is a Berlin-based, cellular agriculture company, founded by professionals from the alternative protein industry. We create B2B ingredient solutions based on cultivated fat, which provide plant-based and cultivated meat with the real meat taste."Traction: 

• Milestone #1: Part of ProVeg Incubator 2022 cohort.

• Milestone #2: Partnership with Leibniz University Hannover for use of their R&D center.

• Milestone #3: LOI's with denovoMATRIX (technology solutions for FBS-free cell manufacturing) and OSPIN (specialize in scaling up cell cultivation in bioreactors)

Competition: Hoxton Farms, Peace of Meat, Mission Barns.Learn More / View Deck / Request Intro (sign up/sign in required)

📦 Cano

HQ: CanadaRaising: $2M USD - Valuation: TBDExisting investors: Filaction, PME MTL, BDCStatus: Searching LeadFounders: Marco Gartenhaus

Pitch: "Cano's reusable food container and sustainable rewards help food chains reduce their environmental footprint and boost customer loyalty."

Traction:

• Reusable container system and technology ready to scale.

• Signed major partnerships with global cafeteria operators.

• Launched at 10+ sites, over 3000 users.

• Over 75000 packaging saved.

• Team of 6 (FT) Bootstrapped over 2M$ of non-dilutive funds.

Competition: Loop US, Muuse, ClubZero, DispatchGoods, Consigne GreenGo.

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 🍄 Future Food Now

HQ: EstoniaRaising: €500k EUR - Valuation: -Existing investors: ProVeg InternationalStatus: Newly Opened.Founders: Triin Remmelgas, Andrean RazumovskiPitch: "Developing healthy mycoprotein-based meat and seafood. Our mission is to enable people to enjoy vegan products that surpass their animal-based counterparts in terms of taste, healthiness, price and sale."Traction:

• Receiving a grant for developing chicken meat analogue.

• Created a texturization process resulting in products that closely resemble chicken breast fillet.

• We are sourcing mycoprotein from different suppliers, but will simultaneously develop our own solid state fermentation capabilities for own mycoprotein production.

Competition: Quorn, Beyond Meat, Mushlabs, The Vegetarian Butcher, Vöner, This, Gold & Green, Moving Mountains, HookedLearn More / View Deck / Request Intro (sign up/sign in required)

🌱 Plant Power Tempeh

HQ: United KingdomRaising: £500k GBP - Valuation: -Existing investors: n/aStatus: Round newly opened.Founders: Lawrence Hill

Pitch: "The uk's leading dedicated tempeh brand, stocked in over 1,000 distribution points and available nationwide in Sainsburys UK and Coop Switzerland. "

Traction:

• Available nationwide in Sainsburys - one of the uk's largest supermarkets.

• Available in the COOP Switzerland - joint largest retailer.

• Highest selling tempeh line in UK retailers.

• Ex Quorn CEO key advisor to business.

Competition: Impulse, Tofoo co, Tiba, Better nature, Club Cultured

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+ Hot Decks Last Week:

🍫 Seminal Biosciences - novel bioengineering platform for cocoa-free chocolates. Raising $2.5M - $5M USD.

🐟 Revo Foods  - develops and produces plant-based seafood using 3D-printing technology. Raising €15M EUR.

🤖 Seasony - Modular robotics automation platform for vertical farming. Raising: €5M EUR.

🧪 Ergo Biosciences - production of complex animal proteins by plant cell fermentation for plant-based food applications. Raising: $3M USD.

+ Invest via FoodHack from $5k and up:

🍖 Mooji Meats (YC W'21)- textures plant-based and cultured meat through a patented and highly scalable 3D printing process. More info. NEW: 60% of allocation filled: Invest Now / Learn More.

🍭 Inulox (FH DD'22)- developing an active food ingredient that converts 30% of ingested sugar from foods into a vegetable fibre after consumption. More info. £5k left in allocation: Invest Now / Learn More

🥚 Evo Foods (FH DD'22)- Asia's first plant based egg created with mung, chickpeas and peas with 1/3rd the cost of other plant based eggs worldwide. More info.110% allocation filled: Invest Now / Learn More.

🧀 Nutropy (FH DD'22) - Developing milk proteins identical to cow proteins to create premium French cheeses that would fool the most Frenchy-French. More info.100% allocation full: Invest Now / Learn More.

Fund Spotlight: Imaginary 🇺🇸

Founding Partners: Natalie Massenet, Nicholas BrownFounded: 2017HQ: New York, USASize: $500 Million Fund IIIFocus: "An early stage venture capital firm that invests in generationally-defining brands and the technology businesses  that are changing the way we live by providing best-in-class products and experiences."👀 Portfolio includes: CANN, SIMULATE, Foxtrot, Daily Harvest

Good Reads / Graphics

🍃 Deal of the week: New Zealand's Leaft Foods closed $15 Million Series A funding in a round led by Silicon Valley’s Khosla Ventures to extract protein from plant leaves. Why I like this one is 1) Leaft claims it has a 10x lower carbon footprint per hectare than comparable dairy protein 2) it should be a great allergen-free alternative to wheat and soy-based option 3) is another strong signal to show that APAC FoodTech is really taking off.

👨‍💼 Discussion of the week: Are board members really needed at the Seed stage or is this just overkill?

VC's have been known to overestimate their value (come on, we all do) but at the same time, early stage founders can overestimate their competence. I'm in the belief that giving up board seats at seed stage is likely not needed but shows like Super Pumped, The Dropout and WeCrashed might highlight otherwise.

💰 Alt-protein Exits: "we'll sell for 10x revenue" is what most founders will tell you when talking exits - but the data tells another story. Here's a helpful table from an unnamed source tracking actual exits in the sector which goes to show just how rare a 10x exit is. If you'd like to contribute more data to this table - just reply to let me know.

🦄 Unicorn watch: Global venture funding dropped 19% from Q4 2021 to the first quarter of this year—the steepest drop in at least four years, according to CB Insights. And the number of companies that nabbed “unicorn” status (a valuation of at least $1 billion) fell to a five-quarter low. Still didn't stop Europe's Choco from getting their horn this week.

🤔 Quality tweet from Food/Ag expert Jack Bobo. 

💡 Cool course: Learn how to set-up your own investment Angle Syndicate to through this 3-week course led by the Co-Founder of Blinkist.

Future of Biotech 

We've got a great line up of speakers at the FoodHack Summit, but this one in particular got my attention. From micro-algae proteins to precision fermentation derived human milk - this is set to be a fun chat.

Bit of Fun

Who isn't guilty of doing this? 

Thanks for reading today's edition, I think this weeks' was better than last weeks but still not as good the one from 2 weeks ago.

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.