AgFunderNews reports on the evolution of the global food and agriculture system. By going beyond the headlines, we analyze the people, companies and technologies aiming to improve human and planetary health. Publishing daily, our team of award-winning journalists delivers deeper insight on the growing foodtech, agtech and climate tech industries. A multimedia publication, AgFunderNews is a division of AgFunder, one of the world’s most active agrifoodtech venture capital firms.
FBN and Google's AI context engine, Believer Meats' creditors weigh options, ArkeaBio bags $15m and cuts staff, Antobot scales up, Revo Foods eyes profitability
Express interest in investing in Fund V. AgFunder is a top 100 VC, according to TIME and Statista. Is your business ready for AI analytics? Find out more here.
AI is all over agtech now, but farmers need field-level context and better interoperability to make these tools useful. Jenn spoke with Farmers Business Network about its plans to build agriculture's "first AI context engine" with Google to deliver this. Plus:
And finally, Elaine caught up with food and ag folks at last week's World Agri-Tech and Future Food-Tech shows in London, including Meatly, Antobot, Revo Foods, and AgFunder portco Eclipse Ingredients. Have a great week! Louisa, Jenn, and Elaine FBN and Google team up to give farm AI the context it’s been missing FBN will make the first features of its "AI context engine" available to early test users now, with a broader rollout expected this fall. Jennifer Marston Exclusive: Believer Meats creditors weigh bid for US plant Gray Construction and Ameris Bank are mulling a combined credit and cash bid for Believer's production facility in North Carolina. Elaine Watson Exclusive: FOOD FOUNDERS Studio secures new funding to build its next two foodtech ventures The Swiss venture studio creates foodtech companies to address today's biggest challenges in food manufacturing. Jennifer Marston Exclusive: ArkeaBio raises $15m for livestock methane tech, cuts headcount The hope is that ArkeaBio's first product could be commercialized and start generating revenues in 2028, says CEO Frank Wooten. Elaine Watson Exclusive: Plantik and Hudson River Biotechnology team up to de-risk heat-tolerant strawberries - AgFunder portfolio co! The companies' overarching goal is to produce a validated heat-tolerance trait any strawberry breeder can license. Jennifer Marston 🎥 Meatly bets on 20,000-liter scale to prove cultivated meat economics The last few years have been pretty brutal for cultivated meat, but can a leaner, meaner, pet food-focused approach prevail? Elaine Watson "We've got two platform technologies and we’re executing at a speed that is unheard of in this space," says CEO Siobhan Coster. Elaine Watson Austrian alt meat startup Revo Foods targets profitability by Q3 2027 as 3D-printing scales up With six 3D printers operating at its production facility, Revo Foods can now turn out a product every three seconds, says CEO David Petuzzi. Elaine Watson Antobot scales UV-C robotics push with 300 deployments targeted in 2027 “We're getting great results, big reductions in chemical spraying and also quite good increases in yield as well," says Antobot VP Marc Jones. Elaine Watson Plus: Greenforce acquires Neggst's plant-based egg tech. Jennifer Marston Guest article: There’s a market for saline agriculture. It just needs a boost Saline agriculture is no longer just a series of crop, soil and water management practices. It’s also a business ecosystem. Rich Bellis Guest article: When nutrition becomes an evidence-based intervention, capital follows Investors want evidence that products work and a moat competitors can’t easily replicate. By guest contributors Gali Artzi, PhD, and Matthias de Kock Virtual fencing is no longer hype. Now it has to prove itself a trustworthy tool Is virtual fencing “the new barbed wire” or just another overhyped sector? Jennifer Marston 🎥 Agrifood VC needs a different playbook, says Pymwymic In agrifoodtech investing, says Rogier Pieterse, is it time to stop shooting for the stars and instead aim for the moon, and consistently land there? Elaine Watson 🎥 What is agrihealth—and can it become an investable category? The First Thirty makes the case Falling costs in genomics, sensing and AI are making it easier to connect data across soil, plants, and animals to human health, says Antony Yousefian. Elaine Watson
UK regulators publish growth media and post-approval rules for cultivated meat applicants - Featuring Hoxton Farms! Vegconomist
California's non-UPF label puts science to the test IFT.org TPG raises $10 billion for 2nd private equity climate fund Bloomberg To make real ESG progress, we must reform sustainability-tied executive pay ESG Today Op-ed: Agricultural ‘efficiency’ is a false promise Civil Eats Retailers tamp down shadow AI but struggle to oversee agentic sprawl Cybersecurity Dive 2026 Global AgriFoodTech Investment Report 2025 Developing Markets AgriFoodTech Investment Report 2025 Global AgriFoodTech Investment Report 10 years in agrifoodtech: an 83-page e-zine Climate Capital: Financing Adaptation Pathways for Smallholder Farmers Intern, lab technician, microbiology Phagos (Suresnes, France) Senior manager. business development, biochar Varaha (Gurgaon, India) Senior director, CMC quality operations Faeth Therapeutics (remote/USA) Intern (field ops & customer success, California) Aerobotics (California, US) Biomanufacturing, homogenization and clarification specialist Future Fields (Edmonton, Canada) Chinova Bioworks (Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada) Associate director, regulatory operations Faeth Therapeutics (Austin, Texas, US) ♥️ our newsletter? Forward to a friend or subscribe here |
AgFunderNews
AgFunderNews reports on the evolution of the global food and agriculture system. By going beyond the headlines, we analyze the people, companies and technologies aiming to improve human and planetary health. Publishing daily, our team of award-winning journalists delivers deeper insight on the growing foodtech, agtech and climate tech industries. A multimedia publication, AgFunderNews is a division of AgFunder, one of the world’s most active agrifoodtech venture capital firms.
Express interest in investing in Fund V. AgFunder is a top 100 VC, according to TIME and Statista. Is your business ready for AI analytics? Find out more here. This week: If lack of fit-for-purpose manufacturing capacity was a critical bottleneck for next-gen precision fermented ingredients, why is Liberation Bio struggling to raise the funds to get its Indiana facility over the finish line? Elsewhere, robotics hit the headlines as Kodama raised $7m to scale physical AI for forestry,...
Express interest in investing in Fund V. AgFunder is a top 100 VC, according to TIME and Statista. Is your business ready for AI analytics? Find out more here. This week: With AI and digital tools more prevalent than ever in ag, it's critical to take action on cybersecurity threats already here, says Jenn. Elsewhere, 10 months after the FCC’s bombshell decision to ban sales of new models of foreign made drones in the US, the US ag spray drone market is “very much in flux," experts tell...
Express interest in investing in Fund V. AgFunder is a top 100 VC, according to TIME and Statista. Is your business ready for AI analytics? Find out more here. This week: What went wrong at Kenyan ag marketplace Twiga? Poor execution, high operating costs, or a flawed business model? Elsewhere, with the rise of GLP-1s, will food companies begin to compete on a “nutrition per calorie” basis? Plus: Regen organic: Can it make crops ‘measurably more nutritious?' Ag robotics: Picker's Dr...