Insect farming startup raises $9.3M, builds North America’s largest mealworm facility east of Seattle
Emery has said insects have the potential to be the world’s most sustainable protein.
By Kurt Schlosser
Geek Wire
December 11, 2020
Excerpt:
Beta Hatch is planning to grow more than insects east of Seattle in Cashmere, Wash. The 5-year-old startup is growing its entire operation and in the process has raised $9.3 million in new funding, the company announced Friday.
Founder and CEO Virginia Emery, a PhD entomologist and her team of “insect entrepreneurs,” have been working on a plan to revolutionize the animal feed business out of a facility in SeaTac, Wash., south of Seattle. The new funds will help Beta Hatch complete construction on a 42,000-square-foot flagship facility in Cashmere, a small city in Chelan County, Wash., that is known for its fruit packing and processing industry.
Beta Hatch is converting one third of a building which was previously a juice factory, transitioning the space to a hatchery in a hub-and-spoke operating model and creating the largest mealworm production facility in North America. The plan is to have hatchery facilities (hubs) produce eggs and ranching facilities (spokes) grow product.
