May & June FoodBytes! Alumni News Roundup

FoodBytes! alumni continue to garner press: from sustainable packaging profiles in Vogue to joining the ranks of tech accelerators like Harvard i-Lab, read on to see how these food & ag superstars are breaking barriers.

Latest Alumni Funding News

• DouxMatok closes $22M Series B investment led by Singapore-based BlueRed Partners, allowing the company to commercialize its technology, rebrand its product and to revisit salt, an intitiative DouxMatok now has bandwidth to do (AgFunder).

• Intello Labs raises $2M from Nexus Venture Partners and Omnivore, pivots from AI crop assessment software to drones (The Spoon).

• SomaDetect receives funding from Cavallo Ventures and Builders.VC. Its milk quality technology is a boon for cow health, specifically in detecting mastitis (AgFunder).
• Pod Foods announces $3M in seed funding with participation from M12 and Unshackled Ventures. The distribution startup plans to use the funding to scale 10x in the next 12 months (TechCrunch).

Food Tech: 4 food waste-focused alums join EIT food accelerator

• EIT Foods selects four FB! alumni (Wasteless, Innovopro, Mimica and Novolyze) as part of fourteen food startups driving innovation into its third cohort (Food Ingredients First).
• Corumat is selected as one of nine startups to receive $8.2M in new joint R&D projects between US and Israeli startups, funded by BIRD (Times of Israel).
• TIPA is now being offered by Google Express as a compostable packaging alternative (Israel 21c). The startup is also noted in an article on startups offering luxe and sustainable solutions to plastic packaging (Vogue), and is noted as one of 16 companies rethinking packaging, highlighted for its wrappers in partnership with BOSS Foods (EcoWatch).
• Dexai Robotics is selected for Harvard i-Lab’s 12 week summer venture program (American Inno).
• Krishna Kumal, co-founder of CropIn Technologies, pens an op-ed about the benefits of food traceability and consumers’ growing attention to food safety (Entrepreneur). CropIn also registered a 325 percent growth rate over the last five quarters, outpacing projected numbers and on target to achieve 70 percent of the revenue from their international markets in the next year (Business Wire).
• IHG Hotels implements Winnow’s food waste scales across its hotels to reduce food waste (Hotelier Magazine).

AgTech: ViroVet leading the antiviral movement against African Swine Fever

• Nectar continues to gain notoriety for its AI technology fighting biodiversity loss by monitoring bee colony health via sensors (Food Navigator).
• ViroVet partners with Pirbright Institute to develop antivirals for African Swine Fever, which could provide an alternative control method to non-existent vaccines (Pig-World), at a time where veterinary vaccines market will rise to US $12B by 2026 (Best Market Herald).
• RootWave clinches $875K grant from UK government to continue developing its technology that kills weeds with electricity instead of chemicals (Forbes).
• World Economic Forum highlights ImpactVision for its hyperspectral imaging technology and how it’s changing the way we farm to better feed the world (World Economic Forum).
• GrubTubs, the agtech startup turning food waste into animal feed, is profiled in an article and podcast via Voice of Impact, highlighting the company’s success in empowering farmers and working to fight Austin’s $5B food waste epidemic (Voices of Impact).

CPG: Ocean Hugger unveils plant-based eel ‘Unami’

• Fast Company highlights 20 of the top companies combating food waste, including FB! alumni who are upcycling ingredients: ReGrained, Renewall Mill, PLANETARIANS, and Toast Ale (Fast Company).
• Sustainable wine company Proud Pour launches cider and beer beverages, surpassing $43K Kickstarter goal along the way (American Inno).
• Toast Ale gets a plethora of press this past week, including a nod in The New York Times, an interview with Drink Insights, and multiple articles on its move from bottles to cans (Convenience Store, Resource).
• Ocean Hugger Foods unveils plant-based eel sushi, called ‘Unami’ (The Spoon). Are fish substitute innovators Ocean Hugger and New Wave Foods the next ‘big wave’ in alternative protein? (Tech Crunch).
• Akua is profiled in PopSugar for its kelp jerky’s nutritional and sustainability benefits (POPSUGAR).
• Vitamin disrupter GEM gets two press accolades, each highlighting the startup’s roster of superfoods like red algae and ashwaghanda (The Zoe Report, InStyle).
• Oatbox is breaking into the breakfast retail game, launching exclusively in Metro stores across Quebec (La Presse).
• Native State Foods gets a shout out in FoodBytes! Mentor Elliot Begoun’s blog post on how to find the right channel strategy for your brand (The Intertwine Group).

Are you a FoodBytes! alum? Got news to share? Submit your story to FoodBytes@rabobank.com with the subject line Alumni News Roundup Submission.