Sustainable Food Ventures

?????? DE NOVO FOODLABS NABS $1.5M FOR ANIMAL-FREE LACTOFERRIN PROTEIN North Carolina-based De Novo Foodlabs, which is making animal-free lactoferrin, has attracted $1.5M in a seed investment round led by California’s Joyful VC. It takes the total capital raised by the precision fermentation startup to $4M, following a $2.5M pre-seed round in 2022. Previous investors include Sustainable Food Ventures, Siddhi Capital, CULT Food Science and PRITHVI CAPITAL MARKETS LIMITED. Joyful Ventures is spearheaded by Vegan Women Summit’s Jennifer Stojkovic, The Good Food Institute co-founder Milo Runkle. It was launched last year with a $23M infusion from alternative protein leaders, with advisors and investors like Oatly co-founder Bj?rn ?ste, Shiok Meats co-founder Sandhya Sriram, PhD, The EVERY Company CEO Arturo Elizondo, and Wild Earth CEO Ryan Bethencourt. Being backed by a strong pedigree of investors will help De Novo Foodlabs “go from where we are today to commercialising our product”, co-founder and CEO Jean Louwrens tells Green Queen. Louwrens established the company alongside CSO Dr Leah Bessa, COO Richard Grieves, and protein R&D lead Joni Symon in 2021, with the aim of creating “rare protein-based functional ingredients” without animals. De Novo Foodlabs’ first ingredient is NanoFerrin, a precision-fermented version of lactoferrin. The iron-rich whey protein is found in human milk in bovine colostrum produced just after birth, and has a host of functional benefits. It’s crucial for infant development, and offers improved immunity, brain health, iron absorption, and gut health in adults. The fresh capital would allow De Novo Foodlabs to expand its production capacity (from kgs to tonnes) to meet demand from food, beverage and supplement customers, says Louwrens. Learn more in the full article: https://lnkd.in/ecviSGEX #GreenQueen #altprotein #animalfree #innovation #precisionfermentation #futurefood #animalfree

The week of GREAT news ! ?? Cultivated Biosciences raised a $5M seed round! Go, go, go Tomas Turner & Dimitri Zogg, I am super excited for the upcoming non-animal cream from yeast fermentation ?? ?? Umaro Foods closed $3.8M in new financing! The dream team Beth Zotter and Amanda Stiles are ready to scale up their bacon from seaweed derived proteins at half the cost of animal bacon ?? ?? Opalia announced their $2M CAD fundraise! Their cell-based milk development is in full force as Jennifer C?té & team are gearing up to work with commercial partners ?? ?? I was honored by Vegan Women Summit as one of the 150 Women Making History this International Women's Day!? Find me & Sustainable Food Ventures among the 10 kick-ass investors :) Thank you Jennifer Stojkovic & Conny Wyder ?? Links in comments!

I'm excited that we have raised a €4.8M seed round with new investors World Fund and Vorwerk Ventures, who share Farmless’ goal of brewing planet-friendly proteins independent from farmland. Up to now, more efficient food production has meant more incremental improvements: more fossil fuels, more fertilisers, more pesticides, more monocultures and more animals in tiny cages. I don't think it has to be like this. I believe there is a way to feed the world with just a fraction of the land, where we no longer need animals for food production. A world where we rewild vast tracts of farmland, draw down gigatonnes of carbon and reverse biodiversity loss. By taking a fresh approach to food, we found a neglected way of producing proteins that is radically more efficient and reliable compared to animal agriculture. It’s the ancient craft of fermentation, – that has been used for millennia to brew beer and bake bread – which we have adapted for the 21st century. Our feedstock sets us apart because it can be made entirely out of renewable energy and air and is easy to transport. This is a huge breakthrough in terms of land efficiency and food security. Thank you for the continued support of Revent, FoodHack, Tet Ventures, VOYAGERS.io. And excited for some of our new angels to join Niels Korthals Altes, Kristen Rocca, Ernst van Bruggen & Ferdinand Grapperhaus. And I'm personally very excited to get Dr. Nadine Geiser and Peter Schmetz on board of the Farmless team. Furthermore super excited to continue working with our amazing team: Maria C. Cuellar, Pepijn Vloemans, Ana Maria Zetty Arenas, PhD, Wanqing Jia, Marko Kuijper, Thomas Roersma, Jordan Radek, Nucleus Capital, Possible Ventures Thanks TechCrunch for covering our new round :) https://lnkd.in/dXnv-t9n