Hi there,

Steve here. For the last few years, capital has piled into AI at the expense of pretty much everything else, including FoodTech. But this Carta chart making the rounds hints at an interesting development. It shows US capital into physically intensive tech domains (BioTech, ClimateTech, etc.) climbing from 18% of total startup investments in Q1 2017 to 41% in Q1 2026.

Part of the reason: AI itself is now moving beyond software into physical products. Food is about as physical as it gets, and the biggest raises this week went to AI companies building for agrifood, from standardizing siloed farm data through one API to running supply chain scenarios with domain-trained AI agents.

This week's rundown:

🌿 Leaf Agriculture bags a $13M Series B
🐮 Cultivated meat leaves the factory for the farm
🧊 A 5,300 year old sourdough starter, courtesy of Ötzi the Iceman

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🇺🇸 USA — Leaf raises $13M [AgTech]
Unified farm-data API adding AI agents for commercial decision-making across seed, chem, biologicals, retail, and crop insurance teams. Lead: Leaps by Bayer (co-led with undisclosed strategic investors) Follows: N/A

🇬🇧 UK — Apoha raises $36M [BioTech]
Molecular behavior measurement AI platform quantifying taste, smell, reactivity, and failure risk from microgram liquid samples in minutes. Proven in pharma to flag failing drug candidates early, it also helps food companies pinpoint ingredient swaps and reformulations in a fraction of the usual time. Lead: Singular Follows: Draper Associates, Redalpine, Seedcamp, Wilbe, Nucleus (+ Innovate UK grant)

🇺🇸 USA — SWARM Engineering raises $10M [Supply Chain]
Domain-trained AI agents for agrifood supply chain optimization, built by veterans from Microsoft, Palantir, Google, and UiPath. Leads: S2G Investments, AgRogue Growth Partners Follows: Radicle Growth, Grit Road Partners, Middleland Capital, Open Prairie, Serra Ventures, Trailhead Capital

🇨🇦 Canada — NS/TX Industries raises $10.5M [Alternative Protein]
NS/TX’s proprietary scaffolding and directional freezing solves the muscle-fibre texture problem that has stymied the success of whole-cut plant-based meat. The round mixes venture with non-dilutive funding from Protein Industries Canada. Leads: Inter IKEA Development BV, Lever VC Follows: Good Startup, Verdex Capital

🇺🇸 USA — Neion Bio raises $23M [DeepTech]
Frontier genetic engineering platform using chicken eggs as bioreactors for complex glycosylated protein production, with an oversubscribed round and a signed multi-product biosimilars deal already in place. Lead: Caffeinated Capital Follows: Digitalis Ventures, Ensemble VC, Trust Ventures, Haystack, Basis Set Ventures

🇫🇷 France — Innovafeed raises €51M (~$59M) [Alternative Protein]
French black soldier fly producer marks the end of a heavy R&D and industrialization phase (15,000+ tonnes produced, costs cut 7x) and pivots to selling — cutting 60 R&D roles as it pushes into aquaculture and pet food. Lead: Not disclosed (existing investors) Follows: Creadev, QIA, Temasek, FFC, ABC Impact, ADM

🇺🇸 USA — Stars + Honey raises $24M [CPG]
Collagen protein bar brand takes its first outside capital from VMG (the firm behind Quest, Kind, and Vega) on the back of 300% growth and ~$50M projected revenue in 2026. Lead: VMG Partners Follows: N/A

🇨🇦 Canada — Paradigm Inputs raises CAD $2M+ (~$1.4M) [Crop Inputs]
Farmer-direct distribution model for off-patent generic crop inputs, cutting the multi-layer supply-chain markup by a claimed 25% to 50% as it scales across Western Canada. Lead: NYA Ventures Follows: N/A

🇸🇪 Sweden — Nitrocapt raises SEK 27M (~$2.8M) [Crop Inputs]
The EU's Innovation Council is backing Nitrocapt’s fossil-free nitrogen fertilizer production as an alternative to the energy-intensive Haber-Bosch process. This grant is paired with an equity investment option of up to SEK 100M (~$10.5M) for a new factory. Lead: European Innovation Council (EIC) Follows: N/A

🇬🇧 UK — Adamo Foods raises £8.6M (~$10.9M) [Alternative Protein]
EU backing for commercial-scale deployment of a triple-patented fungal fermentation process for whole-cut mycelium steak, through a 12-partner consortium including Bühler and Bidfood. Lead: Circular Bio-based Europe Joint Undertaking (CBE-JU) Follows: N/A

This week, Alex Shandrovsky had conversations with:

🥛 Jennifer Côté, CEO and Co-Founder of Opalia, a Montreal-based biotechnology company pioneering animal-free dairy by producing real whole milk from bovine mammary cells, recently closed a $3.2M CAD Seed round in the challenging 2026 funding climate. Listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

💼 Lauren Abda, Co-Founder of Branch Venture Group, a Boston-based angel investment network and syndicate deployed heavily into the future of food. Over a decade in the space; 29 unique investments made since 2017. Listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

🎥 You can catch both conversations on YouTube as well.

🧫 A dairy operation in Schipluiden is now the world's first cultivated meat farm, inaugurated this week by RespectFarms, a Dutch foundation that acts as a systems integrator connecting livestock farmers with cellular agriculture technology.

🐂 Livestock tech startup 701x raised $10M for its GPS cattle ear tags without a dollar of VC, bootstrapping its way to profitability.

🔬 Coefficient Giving opened a $10M RFP targeting the four taste problems still blocking alt-protein adoption: off-flavors, animal fat replication, egg substitution, and fish flavor mapping.

🛒 Bridgepoint is taking a majority stake in Stockfiller, the digital procurement platform serving over 80% of Swedish grocery retail stores, through its small-cap growth fund.

🐮 Munters acquires UK-based Optifarm, adding AI-driven livestock health monitoring to its Speria platform, which translates real-time animal behavior signals into early health deviation alerts across 18 countries.

🏷️ Tufts research across US and German consumers finds "cultivated," "cultured," and "cellular" outperform "lab-grown" on acceptance and willingness to pay.

🫏 Nestlé filed a patent for hypoallergenic whey protein brewed from precision-fermented donkey milk. No donkey involved, which is probably for the best.

👨🏻‍💻 Zya (London, UK) is hiring Scientists to help bring its sugar-to-fibre enzyme to market.

🧊 Scientists baked sourdough with yeast from Ötzi the Iceman’s 5,300 year-old mummified body.

🍦A British chef made soft serve from his partner's breast milk and reported it tasted "nostalgic."

🌶️Get ready for the summer of “fricy.”

🦬We’ll let this albino water buffalo named Donald Trump wrap things up this week.

We love you.
Steve, Alex, and Ilkka

- - -

🎵 This issue was produced while listening to Fade by Yo La Tengo

By Steve Edgerton, Alex Shandrovsky, and Ilkka Taponen.
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