🐟 New in Funding: Seafood startup out of stealth

💸 Chicago-based VC Bluestein Ventures closed its Fund III with $45 million to support early-stage startups working within consumer-facing technology across the food supply chain, including areas such as health and wellness, proprietary food tech, commerce and digital technology. Its portfolio already includes mycelium meat company Meati and animal-free cheese startup New Culture. Here’s what the close of this fund means.

💰 Regenerate Asset Management completed a €40 million investment from its Regenerate European Sustainable Agriculture fund. It will acquire two farms, which will then be combined to form Regen Blue, a scaled blueberry business focused on regenerative methods, based in Central and Southern Portugal. 

💶 The newly-established AgriFoodTech Venture GmbH, a coalition between BayWa Venture GmbH, MULTIVAC and the Bindewald und Gutting Mühlengruppe, has invested €20 million into twelve agrifoodtech startups working on the future of food.

☁️ AtmosZero secured $21 million Series A funding to decarbonise industrial steam, used across sectors such as food and beverage and chemical manufacturing. Its proprietary ‘Boiler 2.0’ technology extracts heat from the air to produce high-temperature steam with maximum efficiency and without emitting any carbon. Catch the TLDR.

🇬🇧 The UK government announced a £12 million investment into the Microbial Food Hub, a research centre focused on fermentation-based foods as a future food solution.

🇮🇳 Varaha, based in India, raised $8.7 million in a Series A funding round led by early-stage VC firm RTP Global. Its tech platform measures and quantifies carbon sequestration and emissions reduction for regenerative agriculture, afforestation and biochar projects, and is designed to help smallholders in Asia and Africa transition to climate-friendly farming methods.

🌱 WeedOUT Ltd. secured $8.1 million Series A funding, in a round led by Fulcrum Global Capital, to scale its green solution for outsmarting resistant weeds, based on the development of a special weed pollen, which supports improved yield and reduces the need for herbicides.

🇰🇷 South Korean cultivated meat company Simple Planet secured $6 million pre-Series A funding to optimise its technology, designed to produce ingredients like powders and fats for cultivated meat, secure regulatory approval, and support its international expansion plans.

🇳🇿 New Zealand-based Miruku raised $5 million pre-Series A funding to support its B2B molecular farming platform, with which it modifies oilseed crops to produce novel dairy proteins and fats. Why they are working at the intersection of Ag and Food.

🐟 Pacifico Biolabs, based in Berlin, emerged from stealth to raise $3.3 million in an oversubscribed seed funding round. It will use the funds to further scale its “unique” biomass fermentation process to make mycelium-based whole-cut alternatives, starting with seafood. Catch up in a 1 minute read.

☕️ Singapore-based Prefer raised $2 million seed funding to build a larger facility to produce beanless coffee from food industry sidestream ingredients like waste bread, soy milk pulp and spent brewer’s grain, and to support its Asia expansion plans. Here’s where you can try it next.

🇮🇱 Israeli startup Day 8 secured $750,000 pre-seed funding from The Kitchen Hub. Day 8 produces upcycled plant-based proteins from Rubisco, found in green crops like duckweed, which is said to be the most abundant protein on the planet. How they’ll extract the ‘holy grail’ of proteins from Ag waste.

💸 70/30 Food Tech, based in Singapore, raised $700,000 in its seed extension round. It will use the funds to launch a research lab to develop mycelium-based protein products, starting with shredded chicken.