French insect protein startup Ÿnsect has filed for insolvency as it prepares to sell off parts of the business, confirming previous Sifted reporting.
The company, which has raised over $600m to date, has been struggling to fund its production plant Ÿnfarm — a 45k square metre industrial site launched in 2020, where it farms beetles and transforms them into protein ingredients that can be used to create food for animals and humans.
In September, Ÿnsect entered a ‘procédure de sauvegarde’ (safeguarding proceedings), which occurs when a business is facing financial difficulties but is not yet insolvent. The scaleup was looking for €130m to scale Ÿnfarm and put the company on track to reach profitability.
A first call for bids issued one month ago, however, was reported to have received no offers.
“Ÿnsect has not been able to find an agreement on the funding of a safeguarding plan,” the company said in a statement. “In these conditions, and given the cash flow deadlock expected at the end of March, a safeguarding plan now seems impossible.”
The company said it had therefore filed for insolvency proceedings with the commercial court. If accepted by the court, this will enable Ÿnsect to open a second call for bids, in which it can sell the business’s assets separately. These include physical assets like Ÿnfarm, as well as a small pilot factory located in eastern France and 440 patents.
“Ÿnsect… is more than ever actively looking for one or more buyers in the context of an asset disposal plan,” said the company. “Bidders are already invited to approach the administrator in order to access the data room.”
Read the orginal article: https://sifted.eu/articles/ynsect-files-insolvency-news/
