GRAZIA EQUITY’s Post

💼💰 Major Funding & Acquisition Updates 💼💰 🥨 PepsiCo Strikes $1.2B Deal to Buy Siete Foods – PepsiCo is set to expand its portfolio with the acquisition of Mexican-American snacks maker Siete Foods for a staggering $1.2 billion. 🌿 Äio Secures €6.1M to Develop Sustainable Palm Oil Alternatives – Estonian startup Äio raises €6.1M to build a demo facility for turning sawdust into eco-friendly alternatives to palm oil and animal fats. 🍼 Helaina Raises $45M to Scale Precision-Fermented Human Lactoferrin – US-based Helaina lands $45M in Series B funding to commercialize its revolutionary lactoferrin protein for infant formula. 🍫 Foreverland Raises €3.4M to Develop Carob-based Chocolate Alternatives – Italian food-tech startup Foreverland secures €3.4M to push forward sustainable, carob-based alternatives to traditional chocolate. #FundingNews #AcquisitionUpdates #FoodInnovation #SustainableFood

🌱🥓💰 FoodTech 500 alum secures new funding for its new plant-based meat products. LA VIE™, a Paris-based plant-based meat startup, has raised €25M in new investment, following a fourfold increase in sales. The company also launches its new vegan meatballs, which will be available at major retailers, including Carrefour and Auchan Retail, from October 28. The new funding will help La Vie expand its presence and brand awareness in France and the UK, as it launched a national TV campaign that sparks conversations about meat consumption. The company also accomplished a major legal victory, allowing it to keep using meat-related terms like “bacon” and “ham” on its packaging. La Vie’s products are now sold in over 8,200 locations across Europe with sales growing by nearly 200% in the last year. Though not yet profitable, the startup continues to invest in research and development to meet growing demand. French meat consumption is also declining, which supports its growth. More information in the full Green Queen Media article: https://lnkd.in/e_7TzGXY #ForwardFooding #FoodTech500 #plantbasedmeat #altprotein #futurefood

🌱🍗 SIMULATE BOUGHT BY AHIMSA COMPANIES AFTER MONTHS OF TURMOIL SIMULATE, the plant-based meat brand known for its meme-famous Nuggs, has been taken over by Ahimsa Companies, a recently formed holding company. First reported by Axios, the deal is a combination of cash and equity (the amount was undisclosed), and will be used to help the startup return to shelves and consumer’s plates. In recent months, its products have reportedly disappeared from grocery stores, leaving many wondering whether the business was going under. Having raised $57M already, Simulate chose to find a buyer rather than try and secure more money in an increasingly difficult funding environment for plant-based meat companies. It comes months after Ahimsa Companies, which is affiliated with the Ahimsa Foundation, bought vegan food brand Wicked Kitchen and its subsidiaries Good Catch and Current Foods 🌊 for an undisclosed sum. “There’s been a lot of cash deployed to develop great products, brands and technology, but not under the right economic conditions to thrive,” Ahimsa Companies CEO Matthew Tullman told Axios. “To carry forth the plant-based movement, consolidation is really required.” Learn more in the full article: https://lnkd.in/e-usXDT4 #GreenQueen #altprotein #plantbasedmeat #futurefood #foodsystems

📰 Monthly European #food & related-services transactions: 🍻 LFPI invests in Montaner Pietrini Boissons (🇫🇷), the leading independent distributor of drinks for Cafés, Hotels and Restaurants in France, with €280m of revenues in 2023. 🥛 Cultivated Biosciences (🇨🇭) raises a $5m seed round, to accelerate both the development of their yeast cream and prepare for the US market launch in 2025. 🌿 NVM Private Equity LLP invests £15m in Vegetarian Express (🇬🇧), a provider of high quality, plant-based ingredients, supplying over 1,200+ products to a diverse customer base of over 3,000 chefs nationally. Jungbunzlauer (🇨🇭) acquires Alliance Gums & Industries (🇫🇷), an expert blending company that creates formulated texturising solutions, from Roquette Ventures, part of the Roquette group (🇫🇷). 🥔 Nimbus hands-on investors has agreed to acquire CelaVita (🇳🇱) from McCain Group. 🍲 SILL Entreprises (🇫🇷) offer to acquires French Unilever’s liquid soup business Knorr (🇫🇷). 🍕 Maître Pierre (🇫🇷), a reference brand for the traditional Flammekueche, has been acquired by COMPAGNIE DES PATISSIERS (🇫🇷), a frozen ready-to-bake and pastries producer for wholesalers, bakery chains, snacking, coffee shops and retailers. 🍇 Bene Bono (🇫🇷) raises a €10m round led by AVP (AXA Venture Partners) with the participation of 2050 and historical investors Stride.VC and Project A Ventures. 💝 La Fourche (🇫🇷) raises €26.5m of which €2.5m from 1,600 crowdfunders in 72h. 🐝 HAL Investments invests €140m in preferred share in Koppert (🇳🇱), the family-owned global leader in biological solutions for agriculture. The company has approximately 2,700 employees and revenues over €417m. Cibus Capital LLP, the specialist investment advisory firm focused on sustainable food and agriculture, closed: 🪴 Cibus Fund II, a $510m mid-market private equity fund 🌱 Cibus Enterprise Fund II, a $135m venture fund 🤖 Tsylana AI test phase is complete and in production soon to better search #privateequity #investments and millions of company profiles on Tsylana app for #investmentbanking #corporatefinance and #capitalinvestissement professionals.

#NakedStories: McCain We're thrilled to share a testimonial from our ongoing partnership with McCain Foods, following the successful delivery of our 'Multisensory Textures' research project. This report delves deep into the strategic trends and drivers of texture across the industry, providing invaluable insights for the future of food innovation worldwide. Alongside delivering the research report, we've been actively scouting globally for startups with pioneering innovations in this domain, engaging more than 30 entities across the ecosystem. This scouting has opened up some crucial doorways to fostering collaboration and engagement opportunities for new innovation at McCain. 🌱 This quarter, we're excited to announce an extension of our collaboration with McCain, underscoring our shared commitment to pushing the boundaries of possibility in product innovation and nutrition. 🤝 We extend our thanks to McCain for their enduring partnership, and to Joseph Lake for his endorsement. Together, we're not just imagining the future of food - we're actively shaping it, one innovation at a time. #NakedInnovations #McCain #FoodInnovation

“The mission is not only to create products that appeal to the mass market that are better for you and better for the planet,” says Matias Muchnick, CEO of plant-based start-up NotCo. “It’s to make sure that we’re holding hands with other companies that are trying to do that as well.” Nine years after Muchnick created NotCo, launched in Chile with a mission to use technology to move the needle on sustainability, the trajectory is pointing upwards. NotCo’s line of plant-based milk, mayo, chicken, beef, ice cream and dulce de leche spread has paved the way for partnerships with Starbucks, Burger King, Papa Johns, Mars and, most recently, Kraft Heinz Company, for which NotCo helped devise a plant-based version of its iconic mac and cheese. So far, NotCo has raised US$430 million and has some 500 employees spread across North and South America, almost half working in science development. “It’s an insane amount of money,” Muchnick told Corporate Knights associate editor Natalie Alcoba during a call from New York City, where the company’s corporate headquarters are now located. Read on to find out about its secret weapon (an AI named Giuseppe) and how looking at food can be just like looking at the composition of a star. It's part of our Plant Power package in our new spring issue, out tomorrow. #plantbased #startup #sustainability https://lnkd.in/d4QMVWMj

Maybe it’s just time to accept this is how things will go. Private money in goldrush mentality chases the next big thing for profit. Some win, many lose and the market sorts itself out over time. If you look just at the very narrow area that we focus on we’ve had all sorts of ‘big moves’ in food delivery, food robotics, plant based, cultured meat, menu digitization, payments and so on. Some great solutions and products within the mix, a huge amount of average and some totally rubbish. Whilst I’m sure that these investors have more intelligence than just going all in on the river or putting a chunk on black when you look at some of the investments you have to wonder. The point in this article that resonates most is the appetite for change and the value add for consumers. You have to move the dial on quality, cost or convenience to cut through This! in the UK and Omni in Asia have done a much better job of consumer centric product development than most and are now reaping the rewards of that endeavour. Those chasing the money seem to be coming up short. David Swan great share and article

We are proud to announce that EIT Food Accelerator Network alumnus Blue Tree Technologies Ltd. from our 2023 cohort has secured self-affirmed GRAS status, successfully scaling its solution with Israeli juice manufacturer Priniv, using its patented process to selectively remove sugars.   This is a great achievement, and the startup is now in talks with leading juice manufacturers around the globe. Blue Tree Technologies Ltd. cuts sugar, using ultrafiltration coupled with adsorption to selectively remove disaccharides, such as sucrose, lactose and maltose from natural beverages such as juice, milk, and beer without sacrificing taste or compromising brands’ clean label credentials.   Founded in 2020 by Didier Toubia (cofounder and CEO at cultivated meat startup Aleph Farms) and Yuval Klein, Blue Tree Technologies Ltd. offers a turnkey solution, fully integrating their system into a partner’s manufacturing line.    "Consumers want natural, less processed, clean label products, and Blue Tree can deliver both. In 2023, we fully scaled up our solution and expanded our development to other categories beyond orange juice. Our system underwent significant internal and external review and safety testing. This process included direct interaction with the FDA to ensure the system meets all relevant safety standards. We plan to license the system to juice and beverage producers around the world, and we’re currently negotiating with large-scale manufacturers in Latin America, Southeast Asia, and Europe. What our partners appreciate about our team is that we come from the industry, so we know how to approach manufacturers and provide them with a very agile solution." Michael Gordon, CEO Blue Tree Technologies Ltd.   Investors in Blue Tree include OurCrowd, Tnuva, Tempo, Finistere Ventures, Siddhi Capital, NevaTeam Partners, and Ratio Technologies, says Michael Gordon, who is currently talking to an undisclosed corporate venture capital firm about raising additional capital to fund its commercial rollout.   Congratulations to the entire Blue Tree Technologies Ltd. team and everyone involved. #foodsystemtransformation #startupacceleration #foodtechinnovation

First wave of plant-based companies are beginning to fall over, especially those struggling with COGs and margins and those couldn’t find a sustainable product market fit. Unfortunately this is a reality for entrepreneurs and their investors, as we move through the arc of the S innovation curve. But don’t write off the building category, or lobbyist positions from both sides, as the new wave of pipeline companies and technologies grows with heightened focus on taste, nutrition, health, price/margin and texture at the forefront.

Last week’s top food innovation news 📰🛒 Foxtrot plans to reopen 15 stores in Chicago, Dallas, and Austin this summer. meati™ secures $100M funding while expanding to 7,000 retail locations. ABEC accuses GOOD Meat of owing $63M and engaging in litigation misconduct. Evaluating new food production solutions based on scalability is often misguided. Pairwise creates the first seedless blackberry using CRISPR technology. Brand Bites explores how restaurant brands successfully enter the retail market. Queensland backs Pollination's $150M fund for climate solution startups. #foodtech #foodstartups #foodbiz  #agrifoodtech  #foxtrotreturns #meati #altmeat