New in Funding: 🧫 $20M for optimised biomanufacturing

💸 Singaporean agrifood investor VisVires New Protein rebranded to Clay Capital and closed its second fund with $145 million. It will use the funds to support companies across Asia, Israel and Europe which are “applying technology to remedy fundamental problems in the food system”.

🥚In Ovo, based in the Netherlands, secured a €40 million loan from the European Investment Bank to make culling of male chicks a “thing of the past”. Its sensor platform extracts tiny amounts of allantoic fluid from hatching eggs to determine the sex at an early stage, meaning they can be discarded before a foetus develops and then turned into things like protein powders or ingredients for animal feed.

💰Californian biotech Triplebar raised $20 million Series A funding, in a round led by Synthesis Capital, to expand its tech platform for optimising biomanufacturing. It uses microfluidics and rapid testing, coupled with AI and machine learning, for its ‘hyper-throughput’ screening platform which develops more efficient biomanufacturing platforms.

🧬 Berlin-based synbio startup Cambrium raised €8 million seed funding to expand its designer proteins operations, including scaling its proof of concept product, a custom derivative of collagen called NovaColl.

🇲🇽 Verqor, an agrifintech startup based in Mexico, secured $7.5 million to connect more farmers with fast credit via its alternative underwriting process, since more than 90% of Mexico’s farmers lack access to formal financing.

🌾 Danish bioindustrial startup Bioomix secured €6.3 million to develop all-natural microbial products that can help farmers achieve a higher and better yield and eliminate pesticides, antibiotics, and synthetic fertilisers from their processes.

🐮 BiomEdit received a $4.5 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to develop microbiome-based solutions that reduce cattle methane emissions and enhance feed efficiency, with a particular focus on smallholders and pastoralists in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

🍄 Tupu, based in Berlin, raised $3.2 million in a seed funding round co-led by FoodLabs and Zubi Capital. It combines its patent-pending modular farming tech with bioscience, robotics and artificial intelligence to “redefine mushroom cultivation” and grow mushrooms directly in cities. Hear how it works.

👩‍🍳 Amsterdam-based ‘Netflix for star chefs’, Cheflix, raised €1 million. Having grown to over 60,000 members from 30 different countries, it will use the funds to invest in the development of its own mobile app and new content.

📈 British tempeh company Better Nature Tempeh closed its Seedrs campaign with £494,000, significantly exceeding its £400,000 target. Here’s how they’ll use the capital.

🥤US beverage company Sidework closed its latest funding round, bringing its total raised to date to $10 million. It provides hospitality businesses with drinks dispensers with the capability to manage a wide range of ingredients, and that can swiftly adapt to changing consumer demands.