The Award-winning agrifood tech start-up MicroHarvest (website), a leading biotech company focused on developing protein ingredients of the future, has announced a new partnership with Simon Capital. The collaboration will enhance the teams’ operational expertise in the food and production sectors while providing additional funding to fuel the company’s growth.
MicroHarvest, a start-up based in Hamburg (Germany) and Lisbon (Portugal), has raised €1.5M in funding from Simon Capital to reach its total funding of over €10M. This investment follows a successful €8.5M Series A financing round in September led by Astanor Ventures, FoodLabs, Happiness Capital, and Faber. With this new funding, MicroHarvest can work towards achieving important commercialization goals.
As part of its efforts to enter the market by the end of 2023, MicroHarvest is building a pilot plant at its new Lisbon location. Friedrich Droste, Managing Partner at Simon Capital, expressed his excitement to join MicroHarvest in its mission to reshape the B2B protein ingredients industry by unlocking the full potential of microorganisms.
Operating within the rapidly growing fermentation-enabled protein sector, MicroHarvest’s proprietary technology relies on biomass fermentation, offering production speed and efficiency that surpasses other existing methods. The result is high-quality ingredients containing over 60% raw protein, which can be produced in just 24 hours while requiring a fraction of the water and land needed for alternative options.
MicroHarvest’s protein ingredients have many applications along the entire B2B protein value chain, from animal feed to direct use in food and pet food. In its first two years, the company has achieved notable milestones, including winning the prestigious BloombergNEF Pioneers Award for its low-carbon response to alternative protein and demonstrating significant speed to market potential. Over the past year, MicroHarvest has successfully scaled production to 300 kilograms daily and conducted good tests on shrimp feed.
Image provided by MicroHarvest
