Bread & Butter
We are proud to announce the closing of Five Seasons Ventures €180m Food Tech Impact Fund II 🚀
With our new Fund we will continue making investments in European FoodTech companies, with an emphasis on fast-growing consumer-focused food startups with a quantifiable environmental or social impact. The mission remains the same, proving that FoodTech startups can grow as fast as ‘normal’ tech startups: with Fund I portfolio companies generating combined revenues of over €350M in 2021, or a 20x growth in 4 years, we are getting there.
Fund II has already made investments in female wellness supplements her1 and vly, a company using peas to provide a plant-based milk alternative filled with protein. We also backed Barkyn and the nu company.
We are truly grateful to our portfolio founders, none of this would have been possible without them, so a shout out to the 13 teams at Tropic Biosciences THIS™ La Fourche Butternut Box yamo Just Spices GmbH air up yfood Labs vly her1 Cortilia Barkyn the nu company.
➡️ You can read more about it here.
In other news, we recently led air up's €40m+ Series B round to continue their incredible growth journey. In less than 2 years, air up has delivered exceptional growth reaching a €100m revenue run rate, in a market where the consumer needs are known to many: more hydration, the reduction of single-use plastic bottles and increased consumption of healthy drinks.
➡️ You can read more about it here.
Promise, it’s the last one ;)
You may want to know more about our last investment in the nu company and their quest to shape the future of snacking with healthy, plastic-free and climate-positive products 🌱🍫🤤
This €10m series A round alongside DLF Venture and DX Ventures will enable the company to execute its vision to become the next generation snacking company tackling the confectionary industry’s 3 key challenges: sugar, plastic and CO2 emissions.
➡️ We reveal you why we invested in this article.
OK, I tricked you, one more deal.
We are beyond thrilled to announce that fresh pet food subscription company Butternut Box raised a $55.4 million (€47.2 million) Series D round where our fund together with existing investors L Catterton, Passion Capital and White Star Capital doubled down on this extremely exciting company creating a completely new category in pet food 🐶
➡️ Tech Crunch tells you more about it here.
📗 Publishing our first impact report 📗
Food innovation can help solve the two biggest challenges of our time: climate change and human health. We are proud that our portfolio companies are addressing nutritional and health challenges whilst taking environmental responsibility along the entire supply chain into the consumer’s hands and transform the global food system for the better.
In this year’s Impact Report we present the contribution of our portfolio towards the Sustainable Development Goals and our commitment in supporting them through practice sharing, scientific reporting and constant performance counseling.
We thank the new investments made in 2020 yamo, La Fourche, air up as well as Tropic Biosciences and Just Spices GmbH for sharing their stories.
Pascal Clouzard, former CEO of Carrefour France and Spain, joins Five Seasons Ventures as senior advisor for Five Seasons Ventures!
Pascal has deep expertise in transformation, merchandising, retail operations and marketing with a solid track record of consistently delivering strong business performance and driving organizational improvements. He successfully led digital transformation at group level, developing e-commerce and Digital to ensure leadership in online food shopping.
➡️ Read more on why he joined us in this interview.
I’ve been looking for months for supplements for gamers (#Fortniteaddict #justkidding) and I came across those amazing products from Just Legends. Would you like some?
You can now get delivered Butternut Box products in Ireland 🇮🇪
Congrats to Yfood for its rebranding and its new vegan range!
Kudos to vly for launching their cocoa drinks 🤤
And finally bravo to Barkyn for being featured by Wired as one of the 100 hottest startups in Europe 🚀
Judith Camarcat will be part of the upcoming Beyond Animal Pitch Panel and attending the Plant Based World Expo Europe in London on the 15-16th of October.
Louis Magaldi-Charles will be hosting office hours for Antler’s portfolio companies specialized in Food Tech. Read more about it here.
You already have a lot of homework above, so we tried to keep this section short. Here are the very best articles from last month:
- Read this insightful piece from Alexandre Dewez on Toast and in case you want more you can also read this
- Two radically different opinions on lab-grown meat here and here 🧫🔬
- A state of the market from McKinsey on food delivery