Munich-based FarmInsect, an insect technology company, announced on Monday that it has closed an oversubscribed Series A funding round at €8M.
Oslo’s Sandwater led the Series A round with participation from Bayern Kapital’s Growth Fund, the Minderoo Foundation’s Strategic Impact Fund, and the European Innovation Council Fund.
Existing investors HTGF and UnternehmerTUM Funding for Innovators also participated in the round.
FarmInsect says it will use the funds to support the commercial scale-up of its insect farming solution and to fund further R&D work to continue improving its technology.
The agriculture sector contributes significantly to CO2 emissions, and a significant portion of these emissions comes from the production and transportation of protein-rich animal feed such as soy and fishmeal.
Cultivating soybeans, often used in pet and livestock diets, requires a lot of land clearing, often leading to deforestation.
Fishmeal production is also energy-intensive and puts further pressure on wild fish stocks.
Here’s where FarmInsect offers a more sustainable alternative protein source for animal feed — black soldier fly larvae.
Thomas Kuehn, Founder and CEO of FarmInsect, says, “We are very grateful for the trust our investors have placed in us. Together, we will pursue our ambitious goal to make insects the go-to protein source ahead of soy and fishmeal in the EU. In this next stage, we plan to intensify our R&D activities to expand and further improve the current breeding lines decisively.”
FarmInsect: Sustainable alternative protein source for animal feed
In contrast to most insect farming companies that build megafactories, FarmInsect aims to decentralise production and empower farmers by utilising stranded energy and onsite feedstocks.
The company has developed an end-to-end solution, enabling customers to construct modular insect farms onsite at their facilities.
The company fattens seed larvae with regional waste materials such as peels or harvest residues, and sends weekly shipments to customers. Within a week, the larvae grow over 250 times their body weight.
This circular system produces high-quality, protein-rich feed produced directly on the farm more cheaply, with lower CO2 emissions and independently of global supply chains.
FarmInsect allows farmers to reach feed cost savings of up to 30 per cent. Each step in the process is monitored by a proprietary software platform that guides the customer through production step by step.
The investor
Sandwater supports companies that lead the way globally in driving positive climate impact and improving our health systems.
Sandwater typically invests in European companies at Late Seed to Series A and has made 12 investments from the current fund.
Sandwater focuses on four verticals of Resource Efficiency, Energy Transition, Impact Enablers, and Health as a thematic investor with a strong impact mandate.
Morten E. Iversen, Partner at Sandwater, says, “We’ve recognised insects’ commercial and environmental potential for a long time. However, we struggle with the existing business model, which involves substantial capital investment and has proven difficult to scale. We were missing a commercially available, low-capex solution capable of driving meaningful volumes, and FarmInsect offers just that. We strongly believe in the founders’ ability to scale FarmInsect and accelerate the transition from CO2-intensive protein sources.”
Read the orginal article: https://siliconcanals.com/news/startups/munichs-farminsect-bags-8m/
