🛵 New in Funding: $665M for speedy grocery deliveries

🛵 Speedy grocery delivery company Zepto, based in Mumbai, secured a whopping $665 million, more than doubling its valuation to $3.6 billion. The rapid-delivery model is thriving in India, and Zepto is aiming to expand its network of dark stores to over 700 by March 2025.

🇹🇷 Turkish food delivery giant Getir raised $250 million in a funding round led by Abu Dhabi wealth fund Mubadala Investment Co, and announced that it is splitting into two businesses: a food delivery business in Turkey and a separate standalone business that includes all of its other assets.

📲 Local Kitchens, based in San Francisco, raised $40 million in a Series B funding round led by General Catalyst. It has developed a digital format to manage mobile app orders for multiple brands from a single kitchen, and will use the funds to further expand its operations.

🥖 San Francisco-based Hero Bread™ secured $21 million Series B funding to support the expansion of its better-for-you bakery items, made with 0-2g net carbs, 0g sugar, fewer calories and more protein and fibre per serving.

🇦🇺 Australian agtech VC Tenacious Ventures raised $18 million at the first close of its second fund, with which it will support early-stage Australian startups working in agri-food with a positive climate impact.

💰 The Illinois Advanced Research Center at Singapore received a $14.8 million grant from the city-state’s National Research Foundation to establish the Centre for Precision Fermentation and Sustainability.

🇨🇦 The Canadian government is allocating over $11 million in federal funding to Pulse Canada to support plant-based agricultural production, processing, and food manufacturing nationwide.

🇸🇬 Singapore’s Cellivate Technologies, which is developing cell-based solutions for cultivated meat, leather, and cruelty-free cosmetics, won $3.3 million on Channel News Asia’s business reality TV show The Big Spark.

🇺🇸 US startup Foray Bioscience raised $3 million in a seed funding round led by ReGen Ventures. Its database-driven platform uses plant cell culture to deliver harvest-free molecules, materials, and seeds, helping to restore the planet’s resources.

🍊 Sydney-based Naked Rivals secured $3 million from angel investors. It makes juice from ‘ugly’ citrus that wouldn’t otherwise make it to supermarket shelves for cosmetic reasons, and will use the funds to further expand its operations.

🇭🇺 Scoutlabs, based in Budapest, secured $2 million seed funding to develop the “densest digital trap network to precisely track insect migration and swarming”, allowing farmers to more effectively and sustainably combat pests.

🍲 British plant-based frozen ready meal manufacturer Allplants raised £1.8 million, which it is calling a “significant milestone on our pathway to profit”.

🇿🇦 South African startup Immobazyme, a spinout from Stellenbosch University, secured $1.3 million to scale production of its high-value precision fermentation-derived proteins, designed for use in industries including cultivated meat.

🇪🇸 Spain’s MOA Foodtech closed its Series A funding round, led by Dutch VC ICOS Capital. It will use the funds to scale its AI-powered B2B discovery platform for alternative proteins and sustainable ingredients for the F&B industry.

🧫 Orbillion Bio secured investment, in a round co-led by The Venture Collective and At One Ventures, to achieve pre-commercial scale and bring its first cultivated meat product to market.