In This Issue:

Food Venture Financing Trends

• Meatiply, a cultivated meat startup, announced that it raised $3.75 million in its seed round.
• Milano Vice, a digital pizza delivery startup, announced that it raised $9 million in its Series A financing. The company plans to use the funds to become the largest pizza delivery company in Germany and expand into other countries.  
• Clever Carnivore, a cultivated pork foodtech startup, announced that it raised $7 million in seed funding. The company plans to use the funds to expand operations and commercialize its products, including a cultivated pork bratwurst.
  
• Farmless, an alternative protein startup that utilizes fermentation technology, announced that it raised 4.8 million Euros in seed funding.
   

CPG Corporate Venture and Private Equity Fund

This week's featured corporate venture and private equity fund is PINC Group. 

• PINC is Paulig’s (a Finnish family-owned food and drink company) venture arm for early stage investments in and around the future of food. PINC’s objective is to help Paulig renew itself and prosper as well as contribute to a tastier, healthier and more sustainable planet.
• With regards to investing in ventures, PINC’s primary focus includes the following:
  
  • Pre-seed & seed
  • Scalable to 10-50+ MEUR within 5-10 years
  • Nordics but open to Europe
  • High degree of innovation in Taste, Health, Sustainability or Availability
  • Lead or co-invest

• PINC’s portfolio includes the following:
  • Amatera – Sustainable cultivation of perennial crops
  • Imrovin – A startup whose AI-powered platform drives emission reductions in the agrifood value chain
  • EvodiaBio – Bio-industrial company that reinvents production of natural aromas
  • Willicroft – Plant-based cheese company
  • Melt & Marble – next generation of plant-based fat
  • Carrot Kitchen – mobile cooking buddy for kids
  • Mirai Foods – second generation of cellular meat
  • Kaffe Bueno – upcycling of coffee waste into high value ingredients 

ARTICLES

UPCOMING EVENTS

Naturally Boulder
2024 MBArk2Boulder Sustainability & Food Leadership Conference Keynote

Wednesday, January 3 | 7:00 p.m. MT
Location: CU Boulder Center for Academic Success and Engagement, 1725 Euclid Ave., Boulder, Colorado

Naturally Boulder has teamed up with MBArk to present the keynote address of the 2024 MBArk2Boulder Sustainability & Food Leadership Conference: "One Global Company's Ambition to Deliver Sustainable Nutrition to Billions," by Elizabeth Horvath, VP of Marketing, North America for Kerry Foods. Wednesday, January 3, 7pm, CU's CASE Auditorium. In this Keynote address, Elizabeth will share how Kerry is working with food companies large and small on taste, nutrition, reducing food waste and carbon emissions, and furthering their impact.
 
Come just for the keynote by registering through this event page, or get a special Naturally Boulder discount on the entire conference by registering here and using promotional code M2B-NB50 when you check out. This 4th edition of MBArk2Boulder runs from January 3-6 and features more than 15 inspiring sessions on regenerative organic certification, food entrepreneurship, product development, circularity, food waste, packaging/recycling, circularity, and more. Meet with CEOs and industry leaders, take field trips, and join people from all across North America who are as passionate about sustainable food systems as you are.

Register

Naturally North Bay
2024 Legal Update for HR Professionals

Tuesday, January 16 | 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. PT

Tune in to Naturally North Bay's lunch time Human Resources Forum to learn about the most relevant laws and case decisions from 2023, to inform your workplace for 2024 and beyond.
 
Speakers:

• Jennifer Douglas, Managing Partner at Dickenson Peatman & Fogarty
• Samantha Pungprakearti, Attorney at CMPR Law 

Register

Naturally North Bay and Naturally Bay Area
Aligning the Dots... The Secret to Grow Any Business
(for Founders, Owners or Executives of CPG Brands)
Invitation Only Event

Friday, January 19 | 7:30 – 9:30 a.m. PT
Location: Hotel E, Old Courthouse Square 37, Santa Rosa, CA

One of the most vexing challenges many businesses face is how to grow. Dr. Philippe Bouissou's talk introduces a new universal, simple, prescriptive methodology to grow any business. This new way of cutting the Gordian growth knot emerged from Dr. Bouissou's discovery a few years ago. The breakthrough came from earning his Ph.D. in non-linear physics in chaos theory, working directly for Steve Jobs at Apple, and learning valuable lessons from his time as a successful Venture Capitalist. That discovery profoundly changed how he looks at any business and how he changes its growth trajectory.
 
Speakers:

• Philippe Bouissou, CEO of Blue Dots Partners, LLC 

Register