Seven pioneering, impact-driven startups, hailing from Canada to Colombia to Germany to Israel to India, have joined the ProVeg Incubator for the latest edition of its world-renowned alt-protein accelerator programme.
This new cohort has a strong focus on unique ingredients and revolutionary technologies, with the companies developing numerous innovative products, including mushroom-based ingredients grown on vegetable waste, cultured fat, microalgae-based seafood, and a plant-based alternative to the protein found in egg whites.
The eighth round of the ProVeg Incubator accelerator programme kicked off on Monday, 4 April, and will run online for 12 weeks. Based in Berlin, theProVeg Incubator is the world’s first alt-protein accelerator, exclusively supporting companies that are transforming the global food system.
Let’s meet the startups:
- Fotortec Inc. (Colombia/Chile/USA) is tackling the universal problem of food waste, while supplying alt-protein food manufacturers with innovative new ingredients. The company is developing mushroom-based ingredients using oyster mushrooms that are grown on vegetable waste.
- OceanTastes Inc. (USA) aims to produce cultured seafood using proprietary technologies in cell-line isolation, cost-effective serum-free media, and plant-based scaffolding.
- Biofect Innovations (Canada) is a biotech company focused on harnessing the power of microorganisms to produce valuable ingredient products. Biofect leverages synthetic biology to bio-engineer microbes, ‘teaching’ them to produce ingredients using fermentation technology.
- Culminate Foods (Germany) is working on a cultured-fat ingredient for B2B channels. The product is designed to make plant-based meat alternatives taste like the real thing, bringing authentic meat taste, texture, tenderness, and mouthfeel to meat substitutes.
- Rewild Solutions (India) is aiming to minimise animal slaughter, human malnutrition, and climate change issues by offering an alternative whole-cut meat with the taste, texture, and mouthfeel of conventional meat.
- EatMyPlants (Germany) is working on alt-seafood products that are based on microalgae and produced using fermentation processes.
- Fabumin (Israel) is developing a plant-based substitute for albumin, the protein in egg white, which is a major raw material in the global food industry.
Albrecht Wolfmeyer, Head of the ProVeg Incubator, said: “Our latest cohort of startups leverages cutting-edge ingredients like microalgae and fungi and creates novel ingredients like heme and cow-free dairy proteins for the alt-protein industry. The teams unite the three major approaches in the alternative protein space: plant-based, fermentation, and cultivation. Once again the ProVeg Incubator is bringing together a powerhouse of young startup founders who aim to create the next generation of sustainable foods – without animals and without compromising on taste, texture or functionality.”
Since its launch in 2018, the ProVeg Incubator has worked with over 60 startups from around the world. Collectively, those companies have raised more than €230 million and are stocked in over 15,000 stores.
As part of the global food awareness organisation ProVeg International, the Incubator is committed to the mission of reducing the consumption of animals by 50% by the year 2040.
Startups that join the ProVeg Incubator are supported with a tailor-made accelerator programme, one-on-one expert mentoring, access to the Incubator’s extensive networks of industry contacts, and up to €250,000 in funding and in-kind services.
Startup founders who are interested in joining a future cohort at the ProVeg Incubator can apply online at provegincubator.com/application-form/#apply
To stay up to date with all the latest news about the ProVeg Incubator, please go to our website or follow us @provegincubator on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram.
ENDS
Contact:
For further information, please contact Louise Cullen, Marketing & Communications Manager for the ProVeg Incubator, on [email protected]
Notes:
- For more information on the ProVeg Incubator, check out www.provegincubator.com
- ProVeg Incubator is part of ProVeg, a leading food awareness organisation working across four continents. More information can be found at www.proveg.com
- The ProVeg Incubator works with investors and strategic partners including Unovis, VegInvest, Veg Capital, Good Seed Ventures, Zintinus, Vegconomist, Beyond Advisers, NX-Food, and Humane Society India.
