FoodHack’s Post

Some highlights from FoodTech Weekly #183 sent this morning (link in comments): 💰 ProducePay of Los Angeles, U.S. has bagged $38M in Series D funding. The company runs a ‘predictable commerce platform’ for growers and buyers which brings efficiency and helps cut supply chain waste. The round was led by Syngenta Group Ventures, and joined by e.g. Anterra Capital, Astanor Ventures, and Commonfund 🌡️ Jua based in Zurich, Switzerland has scored $16M in funding for its AI models that aim to predict weather and climate patterns for companies in e.g. agriculture, energy, and insurance 👶 Yali Bio of California has created the world’s first breast milk fat (Oleic-Palmitic-Oleic, or OPO) made from yeast using precision fermentation. The breakthrough could help infant formula producers to eventually match nutrition more closely to human milk 🇦🇺 Food distribution platform Yume Food Australia has secured a $2M Seed round. By connecting food manufacturers that have surplus stock with business and charities, Yume helps cut food waste 💶 Barcelona, Spain-based Heura Foods has closed a €40M (appr. $43M) Series B round, backed by Upfield, Unovis Asset Management, European Circular Bioeconomy Fund (ECBF) and New Tree Impact. Heura produces additive-free alt protein meat and fish products 🧂U.S. low sodium manufacturer MicroSalt Inc. has raised £3.1M (appr. $3.9M) through an IPO in London last week. The company says it can provide the same salt taste with 50% less sodium 💶 Smart irrigation startup Agrow Analytics of Malaga, Spain, has raked in €650K in funding, led by GoHub Ventures, Demium Capital, and First Drop VC. The company has developed a system that aggregates data and provides accurate advance recommendations around where, when, and how much to irrigate. This helps improve farmer water footprint 💶 FoodPilot of France has nabbed €4.5M (appr. $4.8M) for its digital food safety management platform (h/t DigitalFoodLab) 🟣 Home gardeners can now buy seeds of gene-edited health-promoting purple tomatoes produced by Norfolk Plant Sciences 💰 U.S. food-as-medicine startup Foodsmart has banked $10M as part of a $40M Series C; the company provides personalized meal planning, a large network of registered dietitians, and a broad marketplace to make healthy eating simple and affordable. 💰Estonian last-mile-delivery robot scaleup Starship Technologies has picked up $90M in new funding. The company’s autonomous robots are making deliveries in 80 locations in e.g. the U.S., U.K., and Estonia. It hopes to expand to more countries this year 🤩 New jobs at Kaffe Bueno (Denmark), Umami Bioworks (Singapore), Foreverland Food (Italy), Hyfé (U.S.), and FUL Foods  (U.S.) ...and much more! #foodtech #foodtechweekly #agtech #startup #funding #tech #innovation  #farming #technology #food #agriculture #science

Catch up on all the latest AgriFoodTech headlines 🙌 📈 What’s up? The US’ largest egg producers, Cal-Maine Foods, Inc., sold a record number of eggs last quarter as consumers switched to more “affordable” proteins. 📉 What’s down? Data from Nielsen shows that UK food inflation fell to its lowest rate in two years in March. 💸 How to fundraise in a downturn according to Gaya Shiloah, Bodil Sidén, Matteo Leonardi, Anna Ottosson, Hadar Sutovsky, Steven Finn, Steve Molino, Ashley Hartman, Mélody Violton and more... 🧬 Researchers at the US Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute have mapped out sugar cane’s genetic code, which could lead to more resilient crops and increased sugar production. 🍄 A new initiative, Open Fung, officially launched with a mission to build collective resources to facilitate innovative ways of working with fungi. 📊 Good Read: European food tech funding was down 35% year-on-year in 2023, but DigitalFoodLab explains why there are still many reasons to hope. 🇧🇷 Brazil’s Aqua Capital closed its third flagship fund with $450 million to support sustainable agrifood solutions. 🥚 Onego Bio, based in Finland, secured $40 million Series A funding to commercialise its precision fermentation animal-free egg protein. 🇩🇰 REDUCED secured €6 million to convert food and agriculture side streams. 🇸🇪 Sweden’s Ironic Biotech secured €1 million pre-seed funding for its precision fermentation proteins. 🇮🇱 Israeli molecular farming startup Finally Foods Ltd emerged from stealth with a pre-seed investment from The Kitchen Hub. 🪺 Vow has earned regulatory approval in Singapore for its cultivated quail. 🍒 RipeLocker, Inc.claims it can “double the shelf life” of some high-value crops, including blueberries, cherries, and walnuts. 🏭 Avant Meats is planning to expand its manufacturing capacity from 250L to 2000L bioreactors at its pilot plant in Singapore by 2025. 🍕 LA VIE™ inked a deal with Pizza Hut France to roll out its plant-based ham as an option on all of the chain’s menu items for 2024. 🏭 South Korea’s 이노하스 Innohas has opened what it says is the world’s largest plant-based food facility in the country. 0️⃣ Sunfed® had its valuation slashed to zero by major investor Blackbird Ventures, having raised $9.4 million in 2018 but become victim to ‘overestimated demand’. 🤝 Rabobank, Foodvalley NL and the Netherlands’ Interprovincial Protein Council have joined forces to launch the new Plant Protein Forward Initiative, with the aim of increasing the consumption of Dutch-grown plant-based proteins. ✂️ Givaudan, MISTA and Bühler Group announced the opening of a state-of-the-art extrusion hub at the MISTA Innovation Center in San Francisco. Jobs from Synonym, Nutropy, StartLife + the latest from Forward Fooding, FoodTech Weekly 👋 Events with Coller Startup Competition, Pitch Lounge, HackSummit, FoodHack Lisbon, FoodHack Meetups https://lnkd.in/eevr84mi

Catch up on the latest FoodTech Funding Rounds and Fund Announcements: 💸 Agrifoodtech VC PeakBridge closed its PeakBridge Growth Fund II with $187 million to support startups working in the future of food. It has made eight investments so far, including animal-free dairy company Standing Ovation, cultivated meat producer Vow, and cacao replacement maker Win-Win 🧮 Restaurant365 raised $175 million, at a valuation of over $1 billion, to further scale its all-in-one, cloud-based accounting, inventory, scheduling, payroll, and HR solution developed specifically for restaurants. 🫑 Pepper secured $30 million in a Series B funding round led by ICONIQ Growth. It will use the funds to leverage advanced technology, like generative AI, to expand its e-commerce platform for food distributors. 🌾 Singapore-based Rize raised $14 million, in a Series A funding round co-led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures, GenZero, Temasek, and Wavemaker Impact, to decarbonise rice cultivation in Asia. Its digital platform is designed to help farmers understand their carbon footprint, and define and finance their climate action plan. 🇰🇷 South Korea’s Simple Planet received a grant of ₩11 billion ($8.1 million) for a government project to boost the country’s food security through cultivated ingredient development, and is working towards regulatory approval for its cultivated meat ingredients in 2025. 🇦🇺 Australian startup AgriWebb raised $7.2 million for its beef cattle management platform, designed to give meat packers and retailers access to data to reduce emissions in their supply chain, and which is currently being used to manage more than 23 million livestock across more than 150 million acres in 18 countries. 🇨🇦 Relocalize, based in Canada, raised CAD 5.8 million seed funding to expand its autonomous micro-factory platform, designed to decentralise food and beverage production, helping to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and costs. 🧈 British dairy brand All Things Butter secured £2.2 million seed funding following a successful launch into national retailers. The brand is aiming to disrupt the traditional, heritage-led dairy industry with a chef-led butter range that is churned twice to be ‘fresh and creamy’. 💡 German agtech hexafarms secured €1.3 million pre-seed funding for its AI-powered greenhouse optimisation technology, which helps increase crop productivity while reducing preventable losses. 🇳🇿 Metrovate, based in New Zealand, raised $1 million in a funding round led by Sprout Agritech. 🐟 Canadian plant-based seafood startup Save Da Sea raised CAD 650,000 in a seed II funding round. Congratulations Nadav Berger, Erich Sieber, Nadim El Khazen, Aki Kaltenbach, Nikolai Macnee, David Ahmed, Thomas Straker, Dhruv Sawhney, Steve Melhuish, Mel Mayol, Justin Webb, Dominic Jeong, https://lnkd.in/eYSta-EH

What's new in FoodTech? Get the headlines in 2 minutes. 📈 What’s up? Dutch supermarket chain Albert Heijn revealed that 44.1% of the proteins it sold in 2023 were plant-based, up from 42.6% in 2022. 📉 What’s down? Minor Figures saw its losses grow to nearly £10 million last year, due to inflationary pressures and a decline in the APAC region. 🔐 Closing down: Chicago-based Sacred Serve, which makes non-dairy gelato using upcycled coconut meat, has shut down its operations. 🍫 The EU is set to fine Mondelēz International for restricting sales of its products between EU member states. 🐟 Exclusive: How Pacifico Biolabs (20233 HackSummit Pitch Finalists) are navigating new waters to bring biomass-fermented seafood to the masses. 🇳🇱 Dutch cultivated meat pioneer Mosa Meat secured €40 million, in a round led by Lowercarbon Capital and M Ventures. 🇮🇱 Greeneye Technology raised $20 million to scale its operations in the US. 🇰🇪 PULA raised $20 million Series B funding to provide agricultural insurance to farmers in Africa, Asia and Latin America. 🌾 OlsAro raised €2.5 million seed funding to expand its climate smart crop breeding platform. ☀️ Solar Foods announced the opening of its Factor 01, the world’s first commercial-scale air protein facility. 🧫 Meatable hosted the EU’s first public tasting event for cultivated meat. 👎 Perfect Day is being sued by Olon for alleged breach of contract, fraudulent inducement, and fraudulent concealment. 🧀 Nobell Foods rebranded to Alpine Bio and secured its 10th US patent. 🇮🇪 Senoptica Technologies has been approved for entry into the North American market by the FDA. 🐢 NotCo has developed NotTurtle Soup, a plant-based solution to turtle soup aimed at preserving the global green sea turtle population, using its AI technology. 7️⃣ Canada’s Wamame Foods Inc. unveiled what it says is the “world’s highest protein content” meat alternative, 64% higher than that of cooked ground beef, which is made with just seven ingredients. 🍔 GreenCoLab unveiled three microalgae-based prototypes. 🍄 US butchery Pat LaFrieda Meat Purveyors joined forces with mycelium meat company Mush Foods to launch a burger made with the startup’s 50CUT blend. 💕 Kraft Heinz has partnered with Mattel to create the Barbiecue sauce, a hot pink mix of (vegan) mayo and barbecue sauce, in homage to Barbie. 💰 McCain Foods announced the acquisition of Irish “veg-first food brand” STRONG ROOTS for an undisclosed sum, having invested $55 million in the company in 2021. HackTrends on synbio for new materials with expert opinions from Brett Cotten and Stephanie Lipp 👋 Join us at a FoodHack Meetup in Dubai, Vienna, Lisbon, Boston, Mexico City 💰 Grow-NY International Business Competition is open for agrifoodtech startups. 🤝 What makes a great early-stage startup team by Steve Molino and NewMoo’s Daphna Miller gives top tips for coming out of stealth https://lnkd.in/eeYy_wfq

What happened in FoodTech this week? Let's take a look 👀 📈 What’s up? A report from Research and Markets predicts the global precision fermentation ingredients market could reach $31.2 billion by 2030. 📉 What’s down? Ordinary Seafood is shutting down, having faced a “dramatically changed” funding landscape. 🍚 Scientists at Yonsei University developed a ‘beef-rice’ hybrid, growing beef muscle and fat cells inside grains of rice to create a new food source . ⌛️ Apply to become a FoodHack Ambassador (closes Sunday). 🦛 Hippo Harvest raised $21 million Series B funding, in a round led by Standard Investments. 🧫 Simple Planet raised 8 billion won pre-Series A funding to accelerate its R&D efforts and scale production of its cell-based meat. 🇰🇪 Shamba Pride secured $3.7 million pre-Series A funding from EU agriculture financing initiative EDFI AgriFI - The Agriculture Financing Initiative and Seedstars Africa Ventures. 🍄 Spacegoods raised £2.5 million seed funding to expand its functional mushroom and nootropic product line. 🥦 Chococo partnered with TENDERSTEM to launch a broccoli-infused chocolate range for Valentine’s Day. 🌾 SaliCrop Ltd unveiled a new seed treatment capable of transforming deserts into arable land for growing food. 👅 Europe’s first official cultivated meat tasting was held by Australian cultivated meat startup Vow and Iceland’s ORF Genetics. 🧀 New Culture earned what it claims is the world’s first self-affirmed GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) status for animal-free casein in the US. 🇮🇱 AlgaeCore - SimpliiGood, based in Israel, unveiled spirulina-derived filaments, designed to mimic the texture of conventional meat and fish in plant-based alternatives. 🇸🇬 TurtleTree became the first precision fermentation dairy company to earn a vegan certification. 🧫 UPSIDE Foods has paused building its new, 187,000-square-foot plant in Illinois in favour of using the plant it currently operates. 🍣 Revo Foods has been sued for “misleading” consumers that its vegan salmon is real fish, but the court case has been dismissed. 🍫 California Cultured Inc. is partnering with Meiji, with a 10-year commercial agreement. 💰 GEA Group is planning to invest €18 million in a state-of-the-art technology centre for alternative proteins in Wisconsin, USA. 🚀 DöhlerGroup is set to dedicate “substantial fermentation capacity” to the production of a high-protein ‘postbiotic’ ingredient from US-based biomass fermentation startup Superbrewed Food Inc. 🤝 PIPA is partnering with Dairy Management Inc. on AI-powered research and development of functional milk products. Jobs with Improvin' Better Nature Tempeh and EIT Food Plus news and views from Miyoko Schinner, Christopher Kong, Antonio Iannone, MassChallenge Switzerland, StartLife, EIT Food, Iris ten Have, Extantia And Meetups in Melbourne, Lisbon, Istanbul, Zurich, New York City, Paris, Berlin, Basel, Ljubljana https://lnkd.in/eeUv4rdx

Catch up on all the FoodTech headlines 🗞️   📈 What’s up? Swedish oat milk giant Oatly posted an 8.5% increase in year-on-year revenue in its 2023 earnings report, though its losses did grow by 6.2%. 📉 What’s down? Smallhold has filed for bankruptcy, with court documents stating that it was “in substantially worse financial shape than previously disclosed”. 📉 Also down? The Vurger Co restaurants are shutting down after eight years in business - here’s why, from their co-founder Rachel Hugh 🇦🇷 Argentina has become the first country to certify carbon-negative beef, with rigorous research and the adoption of cutting-edge practices. 💸 Bluestein Ventures closed its Fund III with $45 million to support early-stage startups working within consumer-facing technology across the food supply chain. ☁️ AtmosZero secured $21 million Series A funding to decarbonise industrial steam, used across sectors such as food and beverage and chemical manufacturing. 🐟 Pacifico Biolabs emerged from stealth to raise $3.3 million in an oversubscribed seed funding round. ☕️ Prefer | bean-free coffee raised $2 million seed funding to build a larger facility to produce beanless coffee from food industry sidestream ingredients. 🇮🇱 Day 8 secured $750,000 pre-seed funding from The Kitchen Hub. 🐟 Atlantic Fish Co. is developing cell lines for cultivated halibut, and other overfished wild-caught species. 🤝 Aleph Farms has partnered with biomanufacturer BBGI Group and Fermbox Bio to create the first production facility dedicated to cultured meat in Thailand. ✅ Vivici achieved self-affirmed GRAS status for its animal-free whey protein. 🍞 US startup Base Culture unveiled its Simply Bread line, which is clean-label, fibre-rich and gluten-free, made with tapioca, coconut, almond, chickpea, flax and hemp. 🔝 Beyond Meat unveiled its ‘most significant renovation to date’, Beyond IV. 🍳 Singapore’s Float Foods introduced licensed technology for plant-based egg yolk manufacturing. 🤝 Unilever is launching a lactose-free chocolate ice cream under its Breyers brand, made with Perfect Day’s precision fermentation animal-free whey protein. 🐶 Ocado Retail Ltd is launching a ‘fine dining’ frozen food range for pets, made with ‘human-grade’ meat, fish and poultry. 💰 Oatly has agreed to pay a $9.25 million settlement following accusations of greenwashing. ➕ HackTrends on Bioreactor bottlenecks with insights from Matthew McCann, 🍄Daniel MacGowan von Holstein, Hamid Noori, David Brandes and Julian I. 🗓️ FoodHack Meetups in Istanbul, Zurich, New York City, Paris, Berlin, Basel, Ljubljana and Tel Aviv. 👀 Startup opportunities with Impact Hub Berlin, MassChallenge Switzerland, good reads by Rebread and Marble. 🚀 Venture Studios with EMpact, EVIG Group, FoodLabs, Food Founders, FoodYoung, Fresh Ventures Studio, Frontier RNG, The Kitchen Hub. https://lnkd.in/em42rvFb

Cultivated eel, chat-GPT powered pizza toppings and 3D-printed shrimp... Catch up on this week's news in FoodTech 🍣 Forsea Foods, based in Israel, unveiled the first prototype of its cultivated eel, and has partnered with Tokyo vegan restaurant SAIDO to create two traditional Japanese dishes with the cell-cultured fish. 🧫 Dutch cultivated pork startup Meatable has submitted a dossier to hold the Netherlands’ first legally sanctioned cultivated meat tasting. 🧪 Ayana Bio is partnering with South Korean startup Wooree Green Science to develop sustainable, agriculture-free saffron using plant-cell technology. 🐠 Irish aquaculture startup Sea&Believe, which develops ingredients for the food and skincare industry using nutrient-rich Palmaria palmata (red seaweed), launched its inaugural seaweed farm in Connemara, Ireland. 🍤 Israel’s Steakholder Foods unveiled what it says are the world’s first plant-based 3D-printed shrimp, using its DropJet printer to “precision-print” in-house-created shrimp-flavoured inks to create the plant-based analogues layer-by-layer. 🍄 Germany’s Infinite Roots®, formerly known as Mushlabs, secured $58 million Series B funding, marking “the largest investment” in mycelium technologies in Europe to date. 🍭 Ingredient company Elo Life Systems raised a $20.5 million Series A extension from existing investors to commercialise its natural, monk fruit-derived sweetener, which it claims is 300 times sweeter than sugar without the calories. 🍖 Plant-based meat startup chunk foods secured $7.5 million in its seed extension, bringing the round’s total raise to $22 million, and announced a strategic partnership to develop co-branded products with Better Balance, one of Latin America’s largest meat and dairy producers. ☕️ Kaffe Bueno, based in Denmark, raised €6.2 million in a Series A funding round led by Borregaard. It upcycles coffee by-products for the personal care and food industries, and will use the funds to expand into new areas such as advanced materials and agriculture. 🇰🇪 Kenyan agtech Shamba Pride raised $3.7 million pre-Series A funding from EDFI AgriFI - The Agriculture Financing Initiative and Seedstars Africa Ventures. 🥘 Verdify, based in the Netherlands, secured €2.4 million to scale its tech platform, which offers personalised online meal inspiration to empower consumers to make healthier food choices. Plus news and insights from: VBites Dodo Brands IFF Tony Martens Fekini Plantible Foods Paola González Ortiz Juan Ignacio Rion microTERRA Hadar Sutovsky ICL PLANET Startup Hub Green Queen Media Planet A Ventures Revo Foods Tälist Re-Nuble Thia Ventures Roee Nir Jochem Bossenbroek Frank Jaksch Krijn De Nood Daan LuiningMazen Rizk Jennifer O'Brien Juan Pablo Medina Alejandro Franco Camilo Fernandez Read up on the latest news by Nicola Spalding: https://lnkd.in/eJnsCv_s

🚀 We are thrilled to unveil the ten dynamic agrifood startups from Central Eastern and Southern European regions chosen to join the 3rd edition of the 𝐄𝐈𝐓 𝐅𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐒𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐁𝐨𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐦 this year! This year's cohort features a vibrant mix of innovators, including:   💡 AI-driven platforms enhancing agricultural productivity and retail operations. 🌱Cutting-edge plant-based alternatives. 🔎 Advanced technologies in air purification, disinfection, food hygiene, drying, soil monitoring, and smart food processing and more! These startups are set to redefine agrifood markets with the support of expert growth advisors and have already participated in an insightful Sales Booster Masterclass on 18-19th of June facilitated by our workshop delivery partner, Katalista Ventures. Join us in celebrating these pioneers who are set to make significant contributions to the agrifood landscape. 🎉 Cental East European cohort • Cropt (Serbia). Empowering agriculture with data: Strategic insights in crop production based on cutting edge AI technologies. • Proofminder (Hungary). AI Leaf-level Farming Platform. Actionable insights on every leaf and plant to help growers improve the yield quality, decrease the amount of chemicals by up to 80% and achieve production goals sustainably. • Inspectle Food (Estonia). Inspectle Food is a platform for conducting regular food hygiene inspections in GFSI certified food production plants that help to solve non-conformities faster and save quality team time due to automatically generated reports and user friendly interface. • NanoSci - photocatalytic materials (Poland). Helping the food industry reduce waste and ensure product safety through innovative air purification technology. • Bluana Foods (Romania). A plant-based seafood alternative product, for tuna and salmon sashimi. • SERio Roślinny ser (Poland). Variety of innovative plant-based cheese made from lupin bean and pea, with high protein content.   Southern European cohort   • evja (Italy). Using a seamless mix of artificial intelligence, machine learning, predictive models, agronomic algorithms and IoT wireless sensors. • FarmLabs Agriculture Technologies (Türkiye). AGRO4 VRA Platform, kits and maps that are based on the use of satellite images and processing images show different amounts of fertilizer needed and optimize the usage. • RICE IN ACTION (Spain). The startups developed a proprietary rice processing technology with flavour encapsulation technology that allows them to offer instant rice products and optimize the nutritional content. • BRAINR (Portugal). Brainr is an intuitive Next-generation cloud MES (Manufacturing Execution System), native and specialized in the food sector, that enables smarter processes and integrated production operations in real-time. • BBKW (Portugal). Specialized in smart dryers equipped with cutting-edge features such as IoT systems, enabling precise control, monitoring, and optimization of drying conditions.

Some highlights from FoodTech Weekly #165 (https://lnkd.in/d52gbxXK) sent this morning: 💰 California startup InnerPlant has announced $300K in funding from the United Soybean Board (USB), for its satellite-based detection of crops fluorescing when e.g. under stress from pathogens, or lacking water or nutrients 💰 HV Novatech of South Korea has banked $4M in Series A funding led by Logan Ventures; the company produces a seaweed-extracted heme, which helps plant-based meat taste more like animal-based meat 💶 3D Bio-Tissues (U.K), BioBetter™ (Israel) and LenioBio GmbH (Germany) have been announced winners of the EIT Food / The Good Food Institute Cultivated Meat Innovation Challenge and will share a total of €1.8M to continue their R&D efforts around fetal bovine serum 💰Uganda-based startup Emata, which provides automated loans to farmers in East Africa, has raised $2.4M in funding from e.g. Norrsken Accelerator, African Renaissance Partners, Zephyr Acorn, and angel investors such as Marcus Boström. Emata partners with agricultural cooperatives to extend low-cost loans to smallholder coffee, maize, and dairy farmers, at rates 5x more affordable (and without the need for collateral) than the informal loans they have often relied on up until now 🍳 German precision-fermentation company Formo has announced it plans to launch an egg product made without chickens (but rather produced by bio-designed microbes) at the end of this year in Germany. Chefs will be able to create e.g. baked and scrambled egg dishes, omelettes etc with the new product. The Formo proteins will not be molecularly identical to chicken-egg proteins, and will not require an EFSA Novel Foods approval 💲French grocery chain Carrefour has added labels on products that have recently shrunk in size but increased in effective price, to shame certain suppliers 🌿 U.S. vertical farming company AeroFarms has emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy with new leadership and a big cash injection. The company’s greens are sold in 2K U.S. stores incl. Whole Foods; Aerofarms says it hopes to reach profitability in 2024 📉 The median VC deal size for FoodTech declined for the first time in 7 years, to $3M in Q2 2023, a 12.4% decline from 2022. At the same time however, the number of unique investments (deals) increased by 13.1% quarter-over-quarter 💶 Early-stage AgriFoodTech VC Astanor Ventures closed its second fund at €360M; growth-stage climate-tech fund Blume Equity secured €40M from the European Investment Fund (full disclosure: I’m an advisor to Blume). 🤩 New jobs at OCEANIUM  (U.K.), BIOMILQ (U.S.), Revo Foods (Austria), Moving Floor AB (Sweden), Nium (U.K.), and the World Economic Forum (Switzerland) ...and much more! Subscribe now at: https://lnkd.in/d8mUXXH5 #FoodTech #foodtechweekly #agtech #startup #funding #tech #foodhack #innovation #farming #technology #food #agriculture #science

106 days into a terrible war imposed on us, Israeli Food and Agtech provide most of the investment and innovation news appearing on Agfunder weekly Newsletter. Rays of a brighter future in the midst of darkness. "There has been a flurry of activity from Israeli agrifoodtech startups this week, with SeeTree raising capital for its 'tree intelligence' platform, Mediterranean Food Lab securing new funds for its AI-powered savory ingredients business, and Better Juice raising new capital to reduce sugar in juice. Imagindairy acquired large-scale precision fermentation capabilities, Aleph Farms secured the world's first approval for cultivated beef, and Edete unveiled promising new data on precision pollination. Industry news With a fresh $24m, Burro grows from ‘people to pallet scale’ with autonomous harvest-assist robots Burro will use the new funds to broaden its product line and reach more areas of agriculture struggling with labor. By Jennifer Marston Exclusive: Israel’s SeeTree banks $17.5m to expand its ‘tree intelligence’ platform for orchards and forests New funding will enable SeeTree to work with new crop types and expand into new territories. By Jennifer Marston Mediterranean Food Lab raises $17m series A to scale up AI-powered solid state fermentation tech MFL combines solid state fermentation technology with an AI-driven computational platform to create clean label savory ingredients that give depth, body, and meaty flavors to plant-based foods. By Elaine Watson Juice… with up to 80% less sugar? Ingredion Ventures leads series A at Israeli foodtech co Better Juice The startup's enzymatic technology converts up to 80% of the sugars in juice into dietary fibers and non-digestible sugars. By Elaine Watson Imagindairy acquires industrial-scale precision fermentation lines for animal-free whey Products containing Imagindairy's animal-free whey protein will launch in the US this year. By Elaine Watson Aleph Farms nabs ‘world’s first’ pre-market approval for cultivated beef The pre-approval is the first green light for a non-chicken cultivated meat product and the first approval for a cultivated meat company in the Middle East. By Jennifer Marston California-based farm-ng bags $10m to bring autonomy and robotics to smaller-scale growers Dubbed “Amiga,” the autonomous machine can be adjusted to help humans with a range of tasks on the farm including soil preparation, planting, harvest and crop care. By Jennifer Marston The Week in AgriFoodTech: Agrotoken closes Series A, John Deere & SpaceX team up, MaxAB merges with Wasoko Plus: much ado (and fundraising) about ag robotics and a flurry of updates from Israel's startup scene. By Jennifer Marston