🇳🇱 Netherlands — VitalFluid raises €17.2M [Crop Protection]
VitalFluid makes fungicides from air, water and electricity by using a high-voltage reactors to create plasma activated water that is applied to soil. The components later break down to nitrates, improving plant health. This round includes a €2.7M innovation credit from the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO), and funds VitalFluid’s expansion in the UK, entry into the US, and extension of the treatment to crops like apples and grapes.
Lead: Invest-NL
Follows: Alder Tree Investments, Horticoop, Brabantse Ontwikkelings Maatschappij (BOM), Future Food Fund, Graduate Ventures, Innovation Industries, VDL Groep, Goeie Grutten Impact Fonds

🇭🇰 Hong Kong — Buddy Bites nets $4.2M [Pet Food]
Buddy Bites sells vet-backed, European-made pet food on subscription across Hong Kong and Singapore, donating 1 kg of food for every 2 kg they sell to shelters (close to 20 tons per month!) The round funds extension of its new line of cat food, R&D for a shelf-stable fresh dog food, as well as expansion in Taiwan.
Lead: Digitalis Ventures
Follows: Adrian Lai

🇺🇸 USA — TerraBlaster closes an oversubscribed $12.5M [Agtech]
TerraBlaster builds rugged laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy sensors that are dragged through soil behind a tractor to measure pH, and soil nutrients in real time. Funds will support field trials in the Midwest and integration into tractors, with presales later this year.
Lead: Ulu Ventures
Follows: Khosla Ventures, Trailhead Capital, Builders Vision, Bidra, Ag Startup Engine, Reservoir, Sunna, Plug and Play, GrainInnovate, Hort Innovation Venture Fund (managed by Artesian)

🇺🇸 USA — Mafix raises $5.4M [Agtech]
Mafix, a Stanford spin-out based in Seattle, uses spare cement-kiln capacity to accelerate the weathering of silicate rock. This produces a silicon fertilizer that improves soil and crop health while simultaneously converting CO₂ into stable bicarbonate. Mafix plans to use these funds to achieve 1,000 ton production which would allow it to run larger field trials.
Lead: Azolla Ventures
Follows: Counteract VC, Astera Institute, Plug and Play Ventures, Impact Science Ventures, an undisclosed Dutch family office

🇧🇪 Belgium — MAASH secures €12.15M [Fermentation]
MAASH makes a mycoprotein ingredient via submerged fermentation, that can replace 10-30% of meat in hybrid products. Funding includes €5.85M in equity financing and €6.3M from Bpifrance programs, and will support a 12,000 L demonstration plant in France.
Lead: N/A — no lead named
Follows: Ambra Capital, InvestPro, Bpifrance Amorçage Industriel, Nordzucker, Tereos; €4.3M from Bpifrance’s Première Usine programme and a €2M Prêt d’Amorçage Investissement loan under France 2030

🇪🇪 Estonia — ÄIO and TFTAK win €1.94M [Fermentation]
ÄIO uses specialized yeast to turn agri-food and wood industry sidestreams into oils and fats. In collaboration with TFTAK, a research organization based in Tallinn, ÄIO will utilize this grant to fund integration of automation and digital process into its fermentation platform aimed at reducing overall development and manufacturing costs.
Awarded by: Estonian Business and Innovation Agency (EIS), under the Applied Research Programme

This week, Alex Shandrovsky had conversations with:

🎤 Collateral Good Co-Founder & Partner Mariana Gonzalez, explains why “a flat round is the new up round” in today’s investor-driven market. She shares what the foodtech reset has changed for investors and founders, why commercialization takes much longer than the pitch deck suggests, and the two traits she sees in founders who make it through (brutal honesty, and asking for help). Backed by corporates including Grupo Bimbo and Hugo Boss, Collateral Good manages €100M across food, packaging and textile funds with 24 portfolio companies. Listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

🎤 Nurtured Nuts Founder & CEO Bryant Williams, breaks down the exact five-minute pitch he used to win The Pitch! at IFT FIRST. From crafting a 14-word opening hook, to researching the audience, and most importantly by practicing. Nurtured Nuts’ hypoallergenic USDA-approved peanuts are now being grown at commercial scale outdoors in Georgia, with the first consumer products planned for 2027. Listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

🎥 You can catch both conversations on YouTube as well.

🏭 ADM is adding precision fermentation capacity in Clinton, Iowa. The ingredient giant is investing $55M, supported by $2.2M in tax credits, to convert 460,000+ sq ft of underutilized space into a precision fermentation hub. The site is expected to begin commercial-scale production of The EVERY Company’s animal-free egg protein next year.

🐮 European investors are converging on livestock climate tech as a distinct category. Recent bets include EcoNomad’s BioNomad® waste-to-biogas system, methane-reducing feed additives from Volta Greentech, and monitoring tools such as Hoofcount’s automated dairy footbath. Meanwhile, a new EU-funded Rumen-Innovate program is allocating €4.8 to fund methane reduction through microbiome-based approaches.

😔 Impact Food is shutting down after five years. Co-founder Kelly Pan announced the closure on LinkedIn. The startup took its plant-based whole cut products, Impact Tuna and Impact Salmon, from a class project to commercial products served across restaurants, universities, corporate dining, hotels and airline lounges.

🥩 Upside Foods has withdrawn its $50M bid for Believer Meats’s Wilson, North Carolina facility, although it says it remains interested in the sale.

💰 Rosewood Foundation, Hotel Group and Brinc have opened applications for Rosewood Seeds 2026, offering early-stage startups working across foodtech, agtech, and packaging up to $10,000 in prizes for solutions focused on waste reduction across hospitality’s food and beverage value chain. Applications close 14 September.

Four FTW events between now and mid-September. The full calendar is here.

🇮🇳 FTW IC Meet Up Bangalore — Tuesday 1 September, 5:00–7:00 PM IST, at FLO Club & Kitchen in Bangalore. An invite-only event for investors and founders featuring Moonrider, Zenfold Ventures, Aeravti Ventures, Benzai10, Cargofirst and Ayana Bio. Live Q&A with the investors attending, no pitching, and nothing recorded. Request a seat.

🔥 Fireside Chat with Paul Shapiro — Wednesday 9 September, a closed-door virtual Mastermind for founders with the co-founder and CEO of The Better Meat Co and author of Clean Meat. Hosted by Michroma CEO Ricky Cassini. Not recorded. Sold Out— join the waitlist here.

🇸🇪 IC Dinner Malmö, at The Drop — Tuesday 15 September, 7:30 PM CEST. If you are coming to The Drop, come the night before: same format, founders and operators only, off the record. $9 covers entry and your first beer. Register here.

📍 Want one of these in your city? We are actively looking for hosts. You bring the vision and the content — we bring the playbook, the logistics, and the recruitment. Become a host.

🥤 Would you drink a greenhouse gas emission? Misan Lychee will cost you $16 for a six-pack of soda carbonated with some of the CO2 captured directly from the air by direct air-capture start-up AirMyne. Could this be the tastiest DAC demo yet?

🐿️ Fat Marmot Week is here. Vote for Colorado’s chunkiest marmot, and support the UCLA researchers behind one of the world’s longest-running studies (60 years1) of a wild mammal.

🐟 110 vats of capelin and salt, abandoned for two decades, are still terrorizing a small town in Newfoundland. A food scientist goes in for a sample.

🧪 Ben Katz at UC Irvine will mass spec everything to figure out what is really in your food.

We love you.
Alex, Kat, Steve, and Ilkka

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🎵 This issue was produced while listening to Dolly Parton’s Greatest Hits.

By Alex Shandrovsky, Kat Tarasova, Steve Edgerton, and Ilkka Taponen.
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Disclosures | Boring disclaimer