INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Joanna Glasner
Contributor
More posts by this contributor
US startups off to a strong MA run in
2018
Scaling startups are setting up secondary hubs in these cities
Here is what your daily menu might look like if recently
funded startups have their way.
You&ll start the day with a nice, lightly caffeinated cup ofcheese tea
Chase away yourhangoverwith a cold bottle of liver-boosting supplement
Then slice up a few strawberries, fresh-picked from the cornershipping container.
Lunch is full of options
Perhaps a tuna sandwich made with a plant-based,tuna-free fish
Or, if you&re feeling more carnivorous, grab a grilled chicken breast fresh from the lab thatcultured its cells, while crunching on a side
And for extra protein, how about abrownie
Dinner might be a pizza so good you send your compliments to the chef — only to discover the
For dessert, have somegummy bears.They&re high in fiber with almost no sugar.
Sound terrifying Tasty Intriguing If you checked tasty and
intriguing, then here is some good news: The concoctions highlighted above are all products available (or under development) at food and
beverage startups that have raised venture and seed funding this past year.
These aren&t small servings of capital, either
ACrunchbase Newsanalysis of venture funding for the food and beverage category found that startups in the spacegobbled up more than $3
billion globally in disclosed investment over the past 12 months
That includes a broad mix of supersize deals, tiny seed rounds and everything in-between.
Spending several hours looking at all these
funding rounds leaves one with a distinct sense that eating habits are undergoing a great deal of flux
And while we can&t predict what the menu of the future will really hold, we can highlight some of the trends
For this initial installment in our two-part series, we&ll start with foods
Next week, we&ll zero in on beverages.
Chickenless nuggets and fishless tuna
For protein lovers disenchanted with commercial livestock
farming, the future looks good
At least eight startups developing plant-based and alternative proteins closed rounds in the past year, focused on everything from lab meat
to fishless fish to fast-food nuggets.
New investments add momentum to what wasalready a pretty hot space
To date, more than $600 million in known funding has gone to what we&ve dubbed the &alt-meat& sector, according to Crunchbase data
Actual investment levels may be quite a bit higher since strategic investors don&t always reveal round size.
In recent months, we&ve seen
particularly strong interest in the lab-grown meat space
At least three startups in this area — Memphis Meats, SuperMeat andWild Type — raised multi-million dollar rounds this year
That could be a signal that investors have grown comfortable with the concept, and now it more a matter of who will be early to market with
a tasty and affordable finished product.
Makers of meatless versions of common meat dishes are also attracting capital
Two of the top funding recipients in our data set includeSeattle Food Tech, which is working to cost-effectively mass-produce meatless
chicken nuggets, andGood Catch, which wants to hook consumers on fishless seafoods
While we haven&t sampled their wares, it does seem like they have chosen some suitable dishes to riff on
After all, in terms of taste, both chicken nuggets and tuna salad are somewhat removed from their original animal protein sources, making it
seemingly easier to sneak in a veggie substitute.
Robot chefs
Another trend we saw catching on with investors is robot chefs
Modern cooking is already a gadget-driven process, so it not surprising investors see this as an area ripe for broad adoption.
Pizza, the
perennial takeout favorite, seems to be a popular area for future takeover by robots, with at least two companies securing rounds in recent
Silicon Valley-basedZume, which raised $48 million last year, uses robots for tasks like spreading sauce and moving pies in and out of the
France&sEKIM, meanwhile, recently opened what it describes as a fully autonomous restaurant staffed by pizza robots cooking as customers
watch.
Salad, pizza healthier companion side dish, is also getting roboticized
Just this week,Chowbotics, a developer of robots for food service whose lineup includes Sally the salad robot, announced an $11 million
Series A round.
Those aren&t the only players
We&ve put together a more complete list of recently launched or funded robot food startupshere.
Beyond sugar
Sugar substitutes aren&t
exactly a new area of innovation
Diet Rite, often credited as the original diet soda, hit the market in 1958
Since then, we&ve had 60 years of mass-marketing for low-calorie sweeteners, from aspartame to stevia.
It not over
In recent quarters, we&ve seen a raft of funding rounds for startups developing new ways to reduce or eliminate sugar in many of the foods
On the dessert and candy front,Siren SnacksandSmartSweetsare looking to turn favorite indulgences like brownies and gummy bears into healthy
snack options.
The quest for good-for-you sugar also continues
The latest funding recipient in this space appears to beBonumuse, which is working to commercialize two rare sugars, Tagatose and Allulose,
as lower-calorie and potentially healthier substitutes for table sugar
We&ve compiled a list of more sugar-reduction-related startupshere.
Where is it all headed
It tough to tell which early-stage food startups
will take off and which willwind up in the scrap bin
But looking in aggregate at what they&re cooking up, it looks like the meal of the future will be high in protein, low in sugar and prepared
