EIT Food ramps up investment for agri-food start-ups scaling brewers grains upcycling and smart crop tech

 02 Sep 2022 --- Three top start-ups selected from agri-tech innovation investor EIT Food’s existing entrepreneurship programs will get a cash injection to support new advancements in upcycling waste from brewery operations, bio-herbicides and smart crop insights, among others.

Each of the start-ups will be receiving up to €500,000 (US499,000) in financial support.

The financing is part of the EIT Food Startup Impact Fund. EIT Food is supported by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology, a body of the EU.

Through its Startup Impact Fund, EIT Food targets high-performing agri-food companies, whose innovation activities are contributing to making the global food system more sustainable, healthy and trusted.

“EIT Food’s Startup Impact Fund acts as a bridge for high-performing agri-food start-ups to transition from a regional to a European and global investment scope, increasing their visibility to attract interest from other investors,” says Benoit Buntinx, director of business creation at EIT Food.

“We are grateful to our wider investor community, including our core partner FoodSparks (by PeakBridge), which plays a vital role in opening up further investment opportunities for these companies,” he continues.

“EIT Food continues to search for high-impact start-ups with an outstanding definition of their value proposition and proprietary technologies that can increase the sustainability, health and integrity of our food value chain.”

EIT Food targets high-performing agri-food companies, whose innovation activities are contributing to making the global food system more sustainable, healthy and trusted.Upcycling brewery waste
The upcycling trend has been gaining upward momentum this year as developers across the space continue scaling new technologies that transform waste into solutions like umami flavors and amino acids.

One of the three start-ups EIT Food includes upcycling specialist MaGie Creations, from the Netherlands, which takes spent brewers grains waste from breweries and upcycling it into value-added food ingredients for high protein bakery products and fat replacement.

MaGie Crreation’s circular economy model targets food waste, as well as improving the nutritional profile of baked goods such as pastries and cookies.

“Partnering with EIT Food accelerates the speed with which we bring our beer-grain-based food ingredients to market,” comments Madeleine Gielens, founder of MaGie Creations.

“It allows us to take the next steps in research and development, factory design and commercialization, speeding up the market adoption of upcycled foods.” 

Next-gen bio crop inputs
Belgium-based Fyteko is developing next generation bio crop inputs, such as bio-stimulants, bio-herbicides and bio-fungicides. These low cost, effective products are environmentally sustainable, and can be used to enhance and replace traditional agri-chem crop inputs. 

“As an EIT Food community member we are very much looking forward to receiving support in scaling our operations, connecting with industry partners or further investment opportunities,” remarks Benedicte O’Sullivan, COO of Fyteko.

Meanwhile, ConstellR in Germany is a space data and services company offering daily, global land surface temperature maps for agri-tech. ConstellR provides the global data for smart crop monitoring, identifying changes in crop health “days to weeks before they become visible” and enables farmers to react to and mitigate potential yield risks earlier than ever before.

“With our vision fixed firmly on future food security and agri-food system optimization via ‘beyond-visual’ data. This partnership with EIT Food helps bring our critical data infrastructure and crop monitoring products and services ever closer to the market and to leveraging global impact,” says Max Gulde, CEO of ConstellR.

“The stellar network of EIT Food and its investment helps us grow our product and agronomy teams and bring precise, granular and actionable crop health insights to the hands of growers across the planet.” 

The funding opportunity is open to all EU agri-food start-ups that are alumni or currently participating in one of EIT Food’s flagship entrepreneurship programs: Seedbed Incubator, EIT Food Accelerator Network or RisingFoodStars. 

Edited by Benjamin Ferrer