🇫🇷 🐜 Ynsect, one of France’s world-leading insect startups, raised €160M in a downturn (a decrease in the valuation). With the funds, it will refocus on 3 key markets, with some layoffs, and on profitability.
🇮🇳 🍽️ Curefoods, an Indian virtual restaurant and cloud kitchen startup, raised $36M. It operates multiple brands in more than 150 kitchens all over India.
🇳🇱🥛The “soda tax” in the Netherlands will increase by 196%, and it will affect much plant-based milk (such as oat milk) due to its nutritional composition. On the one hand, it looks bad in a context where looking for alternatives is more than necessary. However, it also acts as a reminder that much plant-based milk has very poor nutritional values combined with an ingredient list that is far from perfect.
🇺🇸 🚜 Carbon Robotics, a US-based startup, raised $30M for its weeding robots using lasers. It comes as a substitution for mechanical (or human) weeding and spraying.
🇩🇪 🧊 Magnotherm, a German startup, raised €6.3M for its innovative beverage refrigerator. It may look strange, but creating sustainable and scalable new technologies for cooling is a key challenge for the food industry.
🇦🇺 🇩🇪 💥 Another week, another couple of delivery crashes:
- Milkrun, an Australian quick-commerce startup which had raised $75M, is shutting down after only 19 months of activity.
- Alpakas, a German zero-waste online grocery delivery startup, is going bankrupt and looking for a buyer.
🇺🇸 🧫 Liberation Labs, a US startup, is raising $30M in “equipment financing” to develop shared capabilities for precision fermentation. For more on this topic, look at our note on the future of bioreactors in the cloud.
🇺🇸 🧟 Delivery robots are not dead as 2 US startups raised funding:
- Flyby, which operates drones for delivery, raised $4M
- Neubility which develops autonomous delivery robots, raised $26M
🇺🇸 📦 It is the end for Tupperware. The history of this company is quite fascinating. It invented a new product and, more importantly, a new way to market it. This is a true inspiration for innovators: it is not enough to reinvent the market once.
