FH Ventures: Top FoodTech VC's revealed

Hey There,

VCs can actually be value add *shock* 

Here’s the 3 most value-add VCs in FoodTech, as voted by 150+ founders. And here's the rankings based by geography, founder friendliness and more.

Some things that stood out from this survey:

1. The VC experience can be very different founder to founder.

2. "Industry experience" and "fundraising support" is the most common VC value-add.

3. Founders feel more can be done to support with "recruitment" and "new hires" (tbh - just refer them here, it really works)

4. Established VC's bring with them years of experience and a rolodex of warm contacts.

5. Emerging VC's are out to work 10x harder and get into the weeds with founders.

No we can't share the full results. Yes I can share 1-1 feedback in confidence about your fund - if we have the data.

Now onto - 5 deals of the week, from the Norwegian startup creating sustainable seaweed packaging to the US brand out to beat the cost of conventional nuggets.

📦 B'ZEOS (seaweed based packaging)

📍 HQ: Norway💸 Raising: €1.5M🙋‍♂️ CEO: Guy Maurice👀 Existing investors: Public and Private Grants (EIT, ERA, HMF, etc.)💡 Pitch: "B’ZEOS is a start-up offering sustainable/renewable, home compostable, marine degradable, bio-digestible and non-chemically modified packaging solutions made from seaweed extracts to combat plastic pollution, help customers to decarbonise their industries (food, it, fashion, cosmetic, etc.)."📈 Traction:- "€2M+ Secured grant funding- Patent Filed to the EPO- 2 paid pilots with Nestle- 3 core technologies developed"👉 View Deck or Request an intro to the founder

💦 DRIPL (hydration without packaging)

📍 HQ: Belgium💸 Raising: €4M🙋‍♂️ CEO: Kotaiba Aal👀 Existing investors: Angels💡 Pitch: "Dripl is reinventing the beverage industry by providing healthy hydration without disposable packaging. The first step in this vision is answering the demand for circular drinks within offices with a Dripl Refill Point.."📈 Traction:- "€60 000 MRR (tripled in the last 9 months)- 135 Refill Points signed- Distributor partnerships with Compass Group, Selecta and Sodexo- 800.000 packages prevented- Hitting break-even in Q1 '23"👉 View Deck or Request an intro to the founder

🧀 Nth Wonder (non-dairy alternatives)

📍 HQ: Indonesia💸 Raising: US$ 1.5M🙋‍♂️ CEO: Marcello Giannuzzi👀 Existing investors: Artesian Investment Capital💡 Pitch: "We help flexitarians that care about their health and the environment by making vegan non-dairy alternatives that are rich in nutrients, have a unique creaminess and mouthfeel achieved through fermentation, and are made of a nut that grows naturally in the Indonesian rainforest."📈 Traction:- "Kenari supply partner engaged- Started in-house production of the gelato paste- Completed market validation experiment- Completed R&D of mozzarella- Secured industrial lab to increase gelato production capacity (2 tons/month) "

👉 View Deck or Request an intro to the founder

🐓 Rebellyous Foods (plant-based chicken) 

📍 HQ: United States💸 Raising: $15M🙋‍♀️ CEO: Christie Lagally👀 Existing investors: Clear Current Capital, Fifty Years, Liquid 2 Ventures, CPT Capital, Agronomics, and Vulcan Capital.💡 Pitch: "Rebellyous Foods makes plant-based chicken with custom-designed novel manufacturing equipment that allows us to produce at price parity with conventional chicken."📈 Traction:- "We currently distribute to 1k+ points of retail sale across the United States including Whole Foods Market, Sprouts Farmers Market, Albertsons, Jewel-Osco, and Safeway.- Our products are currently menu-ing in 88 school districts in CA, WA, OR, NE and MN and reach over 1.5 million students.- A pilot scale version of the system, called the Mock 1, was designed, deployed and demonstrated in 2022. - Currently, conventional nuggets cost around $1.73/lb (normalized for PNW labor rates) whereas Rebellyous nuggets made by Mock 2 will cost $1.68/lb."

👉 View Deck or Request an intro to the founder

🥤 Mi Terro (advanced material company)

📍 HQ: United States💸 Raising: $2M USD🙋‍♂️ CEO: Robert Luo👀 Existing investors: Astanor💡 Pitch: "Mi Terro is a venture-backed synthetic biology and advanced material company that engineers biomass waste into hydrophilic biopolymers to end microplastic through precision fermentation – this is a first-of-its-kind approach."📈 Traction:- "Unilever and AB InBev co-funded us for the R&D and pilot on converting beer waste into bio-based polymers to replace PVA in detergent and laundry pods.- We have shipped out batch orders to our clients such Monosol, the largest PVA packaging supplier in the world.- We have clients in the US, Japan, and the EU. We also signed MOU with Mitsui. - Our product is patented and USDA Bio-based Certified."

👉 View Deck or Request an intro to the founder

👀 Fund Spotlight: EQT Ventures

📍 HQ: Stockholm, Sweden💰 Fund Size: €1 billion (approx $1.1 billion USD)💡 Focus: Generalist - but with a focus on “where society has problems” including sectors such as climate tech, food tech, the creator economy, energy, fintech, software, data & IT infrastructure, deep tech and more.🌎 Geography/Ticket Size: "The firm wants to use it to make investments of between $1 million and $50 million, with about two-thirds of all investments falling in Europe, and the rest across the U.K. and the U.S."🦄 Current Fund Portfolio: Juni, Nothing, Knoetic and Candela among them.

💡 Good Reads

🗽 NY's FoodTech and DeepTech scene is taking off - and while the metropolis may have plenty of competition both within the US borders and further afield, the confluence of factors contributing to the rise of foodtech in the Big Apple aren’t going anywhere any time soon…

p.s. save the date 8th December for the first ever FoodHack NY meetup

🇮🇱 FoodHack was in Tel Aviv this week - some takeaways from the conference: 1. Funding is happening in pre-seeds and b+. Seed-A is going to be very hard the next few months.2. From foodtech to food - more realistic valuations.3. Government programs will be popping up in many countries from climate change perspective - opportunity to get non-dilutive funding for startups.4. Packaging is under represented. High demand for recyclable packaging, not too many solutions. (see Mi Terro and B'ZEOS above)5. Alternative protein should not be trying to mimic, but trying to be different and better.

💡 Our very own Erika Hombert asked around and came back with a cold-headed outlook on the market

💡 Related to the above - Sobering advice and from the CEO of Shiok Meats

💬 Quick Tweets

🏭 The Biotech Revolution is here, and I'm 100% here for it.

🐑 How VC's be investing:

💸 I vote that we coin a new term: "Seed Premium"

📆 Hey it's a tough market, gotta make money somehow

😅 Bit of Fun

How the top selected VC's be walking around this week

Thanks for reading - you tell me - what did you think of today's edition?

😁 Love It 😐 Meh 😕 Hate it

Arman Anatürk Co-Founder & CEO @FoodHack (HackCapital)

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.