Hi there,

Steve here. This week served as a healthy reminder of why I find food systems endlessly fascinating. From robotic space farmers to human compost, Issue #303 covers a wonderfully strange range of ground.

This week's rundown:

🇯🇵 Terrafarm raises JPY100M to farm its way to space
🥩 UPSIDE Foods bids $50M for Believer Meats' North Carolina facility
🌅 The sun is finally setting on the British Empire

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🇬🇧 UK — Omni raises £11M (~$14.5M) [CPG/F&B]
Vet-formulated plant-based dog food built on a patent-pending plant-and-yeast protein blend that matches meat's amino-acid profile at 30% protein — past 1M+ meals sold and 10x ARR growth. Lead: IW Capital & Redrice Ventures. Follows: RootBridge Capital, Digitalis Ventures, Lever VC, Ani.VC, Ami Capital (+ Deborah Meaden).

🇬🇧 UK — Myota raises $4.5M [Nutrition]
A patented precision-prebiotic fibre system engineered from a decade of MIT microbiome research to feed specific gut bacteria and lift short-chain fatty acid production. Lead: PeakBridge. Follows: N/A.

🇺🇸 USA — Maxine's Heavenly raises ~$3M [CPG/F&B]
Series A to fund the better-for-you CPG brand’s production scale-up and push from regional shelves into national grocery. Lead: Blueberry Capital. Follows: Listen Ventures, Rocana Ventures, Village Super Markets (strategic retail), Paperboy Ventures.

🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia — Terraxy raises $3M (Seed-2) [AgTech]
A KAUST spinout turning dead desert ground into farmland. Its Carbosoil biochar enhancer lifts crop yields while locking carbon away for centuries, a two-for-one on food security and sequestration. Lead: Wa'ed Ventures (Aramco). Follows: KAUST.

🇺🇸 USA — Algae Cooking Club raises $11.6M [CPG/F&B]
A cooking oil fermented from algae, featuring a 535°F smoke point, an omega-9-rich profile, and a land-and-water footprint a fraction of conventional oils. Lead: Great Circle Ventures. Follows: Joyance Partners, Pentland Ventures, Scoop Ventures, Squared Circles.

🇺🇸 USA — Deco Labs raises Seed (undisclosed) [Cell Ag]
A Tufts spinout attacking cultivated meat's biggest cost wall: it converts canola-meal waste into cAlbumin, a low-cost drop-in for albumin — the single priciest ingredient in cell-culture media. Lead: Replicator VC (+ GFI grant) Follows: N/A

🇯🇵 Japan — Terrafarm raises JPY100M ($624K) [AgTech]
Terrafarm is building robotics and controlled-environment systems to address Japan’s aging agrifood workforce, with space agriculture as the long-horizon thesis. The raise funds photosynthesis efficiency research in partnership with the University of Tokyo and field trials of AI-enabled agricultural robots with Chiba University's Space Horticulture Research Center. Lead: N/A Follows: Effissimo Capital Management, Medical Note, Giftee Inc.

🇺🇸 USA — Coconut Cult secures $12.5M [CPG/F&B] The cult probiotic coconut-yogurt brand secured $12.5M to scale manufacturing via equipment financing (debt) from Bridge Finance Group.

This week, Alex Shandrovsky had conversations with:

🏭 Nils Eiteneyer, Partner at Capnamic, a premier early-stage venture capital firm based in Germany. Capnamic backs category-defining B2B tech, deep tech, and early-stage infrastructure startups across Europe. Listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

🤝 Alberto Criado, Principal at Cardumen Capital, an elite European venture capital firm that has rapidly scaled its assets under management from €50M to nearly €400M. Investing in deep tech, cybersecurity, AI, and AgriFoodTech pioneers across Europe and Israel, actively managing a high-performing portfolio of over 40 companies (including alternative protein leaders like Oshi). Listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

🎥 You can catch both conversations on YouTube as well.

🍫 Döhler acquired UK startup Nukoko two years after taking an initial stake, adding its fava bean-based cocoa-free chocolate to the German ingredient giant's portfolio. Nukoko's fermentation-derived alternative delivers 90% fewer emissions and 40% lower sugar than conventional chocolate.

🥩 UPSIDE Foods submitted a $50M stalking horse bid for the US assets of Believer Meats, with competing offers due July 20 and an auction set for July 28. The Wilson, North Carolina facility includes 20,000-litre bioreactors and USDA/FDA-approved infrastructure.

🌿 Schouten Europe acquired fellow Dutch producer Bobeldijk Food Group, claiming the title of Europe's largest family-owned meat alternatives manufacturer. The deal adds manufacturing capacity and private label scale as Schouten reports 30% revenue growth against a broadly flat European plant-based market.

🌱 Faraday Earth, a US startup using non-thermal plasma to produce green ammonia, claims its modular containerized systems could reach price competitiveness with fossil fuel-derived gray ammonia, the foundation of most nitrogen-based fertilizers.

💰 Toronto-based InvestEco Capital closed its Sustainable Food Fund IV at C$106M ($74.6M), pairing mission-aligned family offices with government lenders. Roughly three-quarters of the portfolio is sustainability-focused CPG.

🚀 The Spoon has the scoop on NASA’s Mars to Table Challenge — detailing the open competition for chefs, engineers, and food scientists to design a food system that can sustain a 15-person Mars crew for 500-plus days, with no more than half the calories coming from Earth. Freeze-dried packaged food won't cut it for a multi-year mission with no resupply.

☠️ Human composting is now a burgeoning industry. The resulting compost is technically legal on California food crops. But is it safe?

🌳 A University of Surrey study found that parks have a substantial cooling effect on surrounding neighborhoods. Property developers remain unconvinced.

🌅 The sun will finally set on the British Empire for the first time in centuries.

🚽 Self-driving toilets were not on our 2026 bingo cards.

We love you.
Steve, Ilkka, and Alex

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🎵 This issue was produced while listening to Kindness, A Rebel by River Whyless.

By Steve Edgerton, Ilkka Taponen and Alex Shandrovsky.
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