🎨 €5 million for precision-fermented pigments

💪🏼 US-based NextFoods Inc., parent of functional beverage brands Cheribundi and GoodBelly that makes science-backed products for gut health, muscle recovery and wellness, raised $10 million in a Series 3 funding round led by growth investor ECP Growth to expand its operations.

🥩 Cream Co. Meats closed an $8 million Series A funding round led by Soilworks Natural Capital with participation from Builders Vision, Desert Bloom and the Schmidt Family Foundation to expand processing capacity and its regenerative rancher network, strengthening regional supply chains for responsibly raised beef, lamb and pork.

🧫 German cultivated meat startup Innocent Meat secured €6 million from backers including GENIUS Venture Capital to develop its automated, plug-and-play production technology and build a demonstration facility as it prepares for regulatory approval and market entry in 2028.

🎨 Danish startup Octarine Bio raised €5 million in a Series A extension led by investors including The Footprint Firm, Edaphon, Unconventional Ventures, DSM-Firmenich Ventures and Oskare Capital, to commercialise its precision-fermented pigments for food, textiles and personal care.

💧Brussels-based Dripl secured €4 million in a funding round led by Abacus Investments with support from Spadel, Faraday Venture Partners and the Meert Family. It makes smart, zero-waste water dispensers offering flavoured and functional drinks for workplaces, and will use the funds to roll out across more European markets.

🍄 Canada’s Maia Farms, which uses fermentation to produce speciality oyster mushroom flours and textured mycelium proteins, closed its oversubscribed C$3.75 million seed funding round led by Active Impact Investments with participation from Nya Planet, Ag-West Bio, PIC Investment Group and Deep Checks. It will use the funds to scale its operations.

🤓 UK-based Corvera raised £1.5 million from investors including Firstminute Capital, Y Combinator, and business angels to launch an AI-powered, fully automated operations and supply chain platform for FMCG brands.

🐮 Australian startup GrazeMate raised $1.2 million pre-seed funding in a round led by Y Combinator with Antler and NextGen Ventures to develop fully autonomous, AI-powered drones that use reinforcement learning to herd and monitor cattle.

🌻 Dutch startup Time-Travelling Milkman has partnered with Finland’s VTT Technical Research Centre on a €700,000 EU-backed EIT Food project to upcycle sunflower sidestreams into a new plant protein ingredient.

🐟 Aquabyte secured strategic investment from growth investor Vitruvian Partners, which has become its new majority owner, to accelerate the global expansion of its AI-powered monitoring technology for improving fish welfare, productivity and sustainability in aquaculture.