28 October - 4 Novamber , 2022
Weekly Roundup: Stay up to date with the most recent Agrifood Tech news, investments and partnerships
IPOs, M&As & Investments:
Boston-based TouchBistro has closed $150 million CAD in growth financing from American private equity firm Francisco Partners. The company plans to use this funding for product development, strategic M&A plans and target more upmarket customers.
Canadian-based agriculture firm Ostara Nutrient Recovery Technologies has closed on $70 million in a Series C funding round that will help finance its expansion to St. Louis.
Arizona-based hospitality staffing platform Qwick raised $40M in Series B funding led by Tritium Partners. The company intends to use the funds to accelerate growth in existing markets and rapidly broadening its availability in new cities.
Alt-dairy startup New Culture announced an investment from CJ CheilJedang, a $23 billion Korean conglomerate. The capital will be used for product development and scale-up of its alt- mozzarella slated to launch in pizzerias in 2023.
TechBio platform Eagle Genomics announced the $20 million first close of its scale-up funding round. The investment will support further development of the e[datascientist]™ 2 platform and drive expansion into global markets.
Roslin Technologies has closed a €12.6M Series A funding round. The fresh funds will allow the company to expand its cell line portfolio and to further develop the protocols for scale-up of its cell biomass for meat production. The company will also invest in its insect breeding venture.
Digital professional recipe tool meez has closed an $11.5M Series A funding round led by Craft Ventures to build out the company's product and engineering teams, drive awareness and launch new premium features.
Freiburg-based Constellr has raised $10 million in one of the largest Seed funding rounds in the space sector seen to date. The startup offers precise and plot-level water stress monitoring for the agricultural sector.
Robotic burger maker RoboBurger announced it opened its $10 million Seed 2 round of funding with Promethean Investments to grow and scale up production of its RoboBurger Mark 2 units to keep up with consumer demand.
Plant breeding NuCicer announced the closure of an additional seed investment round led by Leaps by Bayer. Monies will allow NuCicer to scale production of its first-generation chickpea varieties and expand existing work with downstream partners and customers.
Vienna-based Orderlion has announced they raised $4 million pre-Series A funds led by a new undisclosed European VC, Rockstart, seed + speed Ventures, Tecnet, and Gateway Ventures, also participated.
Portuguese startup Aquaponics Iberia is looking to raise €4.5 million to establish an urban farm. It aims to have the capacity to generate 45 tonnes of fresh certified fish per year, together with 130 tonnes of fresh vegetables.
UK-based agtech start-up Dogtooth Technologies has announced a £500,000 investment from FII Institute. The capital will be used to expand into new global markets and develop a new generation of robots capable of picking different crops.
Funds, Grants & Partnerships:
The United Nations’ International Fund for Agricultural Development and partner organizations will provide $2 billion in finance to boost food security in Egypt.
The University of Hawaiʻi received $1.9 million from the federal government to promote and strengthen its programs within food and agricultural sciences.
Seattle-based Picnic Works has partnered with modular kitchen manufacturer ContekPro to create factory-built, turn-key pizza kitchens for food service providers.
Romanian vertical farming company Ultragreens is partnering with supermarket retailer Kaufland Bulgaria to start activities in the local market as part of a strategy to pioneer vertical farming in the Southeast Europe (SEE) region.
Rapid delivery startup Getir has secured a deal with the Co-op to list its products at certain London stores.
McCain Foods is entering the metaverse with its new “Farms of the Future” game in partnership with metaverse giant Roblox, featuring Regen Fries to promote regenerative farming methods.
News & Trends:
Healthy fast casual chain Coolgreens announces it is testing a groundbreaking plant-based cheese created by Boston-based Motif FoodWorks.
Kroger plans to open ghost kitchens at three supermarkets in the Columbus, Ohio, area later this year in partnership with Kitchen United.
Food-tech start-up Better Juice has unveiled its first full-capacity manufacturing plant setting the wheels in motion for full commercial production of its proprietary sugar-reducing immobilized enzymes.
Online grocer Good Eggs has started selling meal kits that combine its own fresh products with spices and sauces developed by culinary brand Momofuku.
Apeel announces “freshness detection technology” for avocados. The system uses hyper-spectral imaging and AI to detect freshness and predict shelf life.
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