Being a startup is and hard life, but there’re many opportunities and ideas to develop by people with any ability. It doesn’t exist only technology, of course, the main mission of food industry is health and substainability and technology is a valid help to reach these goals
In this newsletter I’m going to show you some food startup, a little series of data sheets I’m going to enrich in the Data Sheet dedicated next newsletters.
Meatable
It’s a Dutch company that produces meat without harm for animals; they explain how in their web site: they use a cell from cows and pigs and replicate it in laboratory to obtain meat food. Founded in 2018, it was funded with Series A 172,8 M$. The last one, 47 M$ at March 2021, was given from a group of investors, (from Crunchbase):
DSM Ventures (Netherlands) is a company investing in animal and human health & nutrition and biomed.
Jeffrey Leiden is the Executive Chairman of Vertex Pharmaceuticals since April 2020. Previously he served as CEO and President since February 2012, and has served as a member of Vertex's board of directors since 2009.
Rick Klausner is an Individual Angel Investor
Section 32 (San Diego, CA) is a venture capital fund that invests at the cutting edge of technology, healthcare, and life sciences
Snackpass
Snackpass (San Francisco, CA) is a social commerce platform that focuses on mobile order pickup at local restaurants. Founded by Jonathan Cameron, Jamie Marshall (COO) and Kevin Tan (CEO), it enables mobile ordering, group buying, and social rewards for users. On its platform, restaurants grow their brand by converting offline purchasers into digital followers, while saving on labor costs. It was funded with Series B 95,7 M$, the last one was 70,1 M$ from Craft Ventures, and it acquired the computer company Sleek for an undisclosed amount.
Mimica
Avoiding food waste is the mission of Mimica, using smart labels placed on food package. It lets consumers to know how fresh is the food; with a special composition the label shows if food is still fresh some hours before.
Mimica Touch (London, UK) is a patented label or cap that turns bumpy when food or drinks should no longer be consumed, based on actual temperature conditions. It provides accurate, real-time indication of the product’s freshness with a tactile interface. This time and temperature response is calibrated to different food types to suit food suppliers' requirements (from Crunchbase).
Mimica was funding with 9 M$, the last one is a Series A 4,4 M$ from Khosla Ventures (Menlo Park, CA)
Bigspoon
It’s a cloud kitchen startup with its headquarter in India and aimed to Asian market; it was founded in 2019 by Kapil Mathrani and Poojan Thakkar.
It works on tier-2 markets to minimize the delta between fine-dine and home-delivery experience for the customer. Currently there’re six live brands under their control, and Uber provides the delivery service.
It was funded with 4,3 M$, last seed fund of 2 M$ was from NB Ventures, a ventures capital company based in Dubai.
Serve Automation
It’s a startup created in 2019 by Benson Tsai, Brian Langone and James Wahawisan, all formers SpaceX engineers with the aim to link production and delivery of food, with full accessoried trucks and robots into it cooking while truck move itself. StellarPizza is the first brand owned by Serve Automation and can make over 100 pizzas in 1 hour. Moving & Cooking is the goal of Serve Automation, it was funded with 9 M$ in a seed or crowdfunding round (it’s no clear) and is based in Los Angeles. Here the interview to Forbes. Customers will can order from the StellarPizza app and the food will be produced on the way. It’s the evolution of food trucks. It sounds like a strange thing, but don’t forget where founder come from.