Grim Q2 at Beyond Meat, Meatable raises $35m, should insurers offer farmers 'good soil' discounts?


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AFN Industry News

Beyond Meat CEO under fire after grim Q2, 2023 results: ‘The overall pie is not growing’
By Elaine Watson

NotCo exits refrigerated plant-based milk segment in US, switches focus to shelf-stable
By Elaine Watson

Should ag lenders and crop insurers offer ‘good soil discounts’ to farmers? Land Core develops ‘actuarially sound model’ to make it possible
By Elaine Watson

Climate finance in agrifood is “strikingly low”, says new report from CPI & CLIC
By Jennifer Marston

BeeHero aims for more control outside the hive with the launch of a new pollination insights platform
By Jennifer Marston

Terra Bioindustries builds circular economy with upcycled ‘spent grain sugars’ and proteins
By Elaine Watson

Clearing the air: Neoplants disrupts air purification market with bioengineered houseplants
By Elaine Watson

July people moves: Little Leaf Farms’ new CFO hire a ‘significant milestone,’ Incredo hires co-CEOs, Chobani names new CMO
By Jennifer Marston

AFN Funding News

Dutch cultivated meat startup Meatable raises $35m Series B, gears up for market entry in 2024
By Elaine Watson

Phospholutions lands $10.15m to help more farmers around the world manage phosphorus use
By Jennifer Marston

The Week in AgriFoodTech: Bactolife raises $33m, FAO scoops up $27 million, irrigation tech in the spotlight
By Jennifer Marston

Data snapshot: the Ukraine war’s impact on Eastern Europe agrifoodtech investment
By Jennifer Marston

AFN Interviews, Opinions and Analysis

Miyoko’s new CEO talks plant-based dairy: ‘There’s significant untapped potential’
By Elaine Watson

Meet the founder: Green Growth founders discuss why precision agriculture tools need to be simpler for farmers
By Jennifer Marston

What We're Reading

The cartel that controls the US meat industry
Statecraft

There is no problem biology can't solve… except for economics
SynBioBeta

Weighing the future of fashion’s alternative materials, post-Mylo AgFunder portfolio co!
Vogue Business (paywall)

Venture-backed startups are failing at record rates
Fast Company

The evolution of gene-edited crops
Bloomberg

European VCs see exodus of women investors
Sifted

10 Years Since THAT burger: 10 highlights from the cultivated meat journey
Green Queen

In Case You Missed It

🎥 Dr. Mark Post looks back on 10 years in cultivated meat: ‘The ridiculous prices we had in the beginning have come down tremendously…’
By Elaine Watson

Exclusive: Plant-based chicken startup Nowadays ceases operations, in ‘active conversations’ over selling IP Exclusive!
By Elaine Watson

Cover crop usage steady but still ‘only a fraction’ of total acreage in the US, says Purdue’s latest farmer survey
By Jennifer Marston

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Jobs at AgFunder Portfolio Companies

Technology development technician
MycoWorks (Emeryville, California)

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AgFunderNews

AgFunderNews reports on the evolution of the global food and agriculture system. By going beyond the headlines, we analyse the people, companies and technologies aiming to improve human and planetary health. Publishing daily news, 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 Inc, one of the world’s most active agrifoodtech venture capital firms.

Read more from AgFunderNews

Greetings from London, where the AgFunderNews team has spent the week at the World Agri-Tech and Future Food-Tech summits delving into everything from the disconnect between regulatory and commercial timetables for novel foods and ag biologicals to ongoing questions over how to fund the transition to regenerative agriculture. As for cultivated meat, with private capital increasingly hard to come by, "There's a valley of death we're not going to cross as an industry without a massive infusion...

The big story this week: Are GLP-1 drugs such as Ozempic an ‘existential threat’ to the food industry or an opportunity for some creative thinking? Elsewhere, Infinite Roots raised a cool $58m to scale its mycelium-based platform, AgFunder portco IGS netted $28.6m for vertical farming tech, Bluewhite raised $39m to expand its ag robotics operation, while Elo Life Systems bagged $20.5m to scale its plant breeding tech. We've also got some highlights from the recent cell ag innovation day at...

Can cultivated meat transition from a loss-making novelty served at a handful of high-end restaurants to a commercially viable alternative to animal ag? This week, Elaine Watson spoke with a raft of startups and investors in the space, while Jenn Marston caught up with the VP of automation at John Deere to talk about the last 10 years in agtech. It's also been a big week for Entobel, which opened Asia's largest insect protein plant, and Solar Foods, which bagged $8.8m to grow protein from...