On the International Women’s Day we're shining a spotlight on the women founders of foodtech.
There are 1,600+ foodtech startups globally that are founded or co-founded by women. In 2021, VC investment in all-female founding teams grew 1.6x, to $1.8 billion. This may account for just 4.3% of total VC investment into foodtech, but much higher than levels among overall startup investment, where the figure stands at ~1%.
Although the share of VC investment remain in low single digits, women foodtech leaders are building innovative solutions in many categories, including farm management, robotics, grocery delivery, restaurant tech and more:
Sophie Kim founded Market Kurly, a South Korean grocery delivery service, that raised $210 million last year.
Erez Golonska co-founded INFARM, a Berlin-based vertical farming startup that became unicorn in December last year.
Ida Johnsen co-founded Oda, one of the most valuable online grocery retailers in Europe, headquartered in Oslo.
Sara Menker founded Gro Intelligence, an agriculture supply chain optimization tool based in New York that raised $85 million in 2021.
Eccie Newton and Gini Newton co-founded London's Karma Kitchen, a cloud kitchen company that raised the largest Series A round in foodtech in 2020.
This list is just scraping the surface of women leaders driving innovation in foodtech. Have a look at the complete list:
P.S. There are 706 female-founded foodtech startups that have not disclosed a VC investment yet.
In the news
📍 Whole Foods has launched a local and emerging brands incubator via GroceryDive. Grocery retailers are increasingly sourcing from local brands and aim to increase product diversity. To facilitate this, Whole Foods launched an incubation program for food brands that are not yet in their store.
📈 Commodity prices spike as the war in Ukraine deals another blow to global supplies via MorningBrew. Wheat prices increased 50% since the beginning of the war. Together, Ukraine and Russia account for a third of world's wheat exports. Unfortunately, lower income countries in the Middle East and Africa will be disproportionally impacted as they depend on Ukraine and Russia.
🛒 Kroger continues deep dive into e-commerce grocery, announces new facilities via Freightwaves. Kroger plans to keep up investing in online grocery. The US-based retailer will open 17 new fulfillment centers and expand into 3 new markets in the next 2 years. So far, it has paid off. Kroger's digital sales grew 105% year-over-year.
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Latest foodtech deals
Select deals from last week:
🇺🇸 NCX (formerly SilviaTerra), a SF-based carbon marketplace, raised $50 million Series B. NCX connects landowners with companies seeking to reduce their carbon footprint. Landowners are paid (though the purchace of carbon credits) to grow carbon-rich trees. There are 6 other companies developing similar products.
🇺🇸 Finless Foods, a California-based plant-based and lab-grown fish company, raised $34 million to launch its plant-based tuna products in foodservice this year and finish its lab-grown tuna facility. This is the largest round in plant-based fish category and third-largest round in the lab-grown fish category. To put it in context, fish alternative products account for less than 5% of total alternative protein VC investment.
Other notable foodtech deals from around the globe:
🇮🇱 Tastewise, an Israeli AI-enabled tool for food innovation, secured $17 million Series A to expand into new markets including Canada, Australia, Germany and France.
Ovo, a Dutch agritech company, bagged €34 million in Series B funding to "prevent killing of day-old male chicks".
On Dealroom you can filter companies based on their tech stack. For example, there are 4 544 foodtech companies that use Amazon Web Services. To search for additional tech stacks, go to Advanced Filters > Market & Type, and scroll to the bottom of the page.
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