Innovafeed -a bug company raises close to $500m

Innovafeed (founded in 2016 ) is a bug business cofounded by  Bastien Oggeri, Aude Guo & Clément Ray.  that has raised a fresh  $260m in a raise led by Qatar’s sovereign wealth fundmaking total raise $460m 

Source: Innovafeed

Other investors include 

• Paris-based Creadev 
• Singapore state-owned fund, Temasek, 
• global agricultural commodity traders ADM and Cargill, 
• Future French Champions (a joint venture between Qatar Investment Authority and Bpifrance), 
• ABC Impact, IDIA Capital Investissement and Grow Forward
• La Caisse d'Epargne Hauts de France, Groupe Crédit Agricole, 

BNP Paribas, Arkéa and Société Générale contributed €38m in debt financing.

What it does 

Innovafeed operates two plants in northern France that convert the larvae of the black soldier fly into thousands of tonnes of insect oil and meal for pets, fish, chickens and pigs. 

The black fly has the ability to eat any kind of waste food. 

Bugs are high in nutrients and is a climate-friendly way of feeding fish and animals because the process uses maggots fed with agricultural byproducts, like rotting vegetables, on a fraction of the land needed for livestock. Soy and fishmeal, the traditional bedrock of animal feed in Europe, require a lot more space and can be harmful to the environment. 

“Every factory we build, it’s around 50k tonnes of CO2 avoided,” Oggeri estimates. 

“We won’t replace your burger at the moment — but we can start with snacks and sport nutrition [food],” he says. 

Buggy Growth 

Innovafeed are looking to build insect farms in the US and Asia, with the company targeting up to 20 sites, cofounder Bastien Oggeri tells Sifted. 

The company says it has signed contracts worth more than €1bn over the next 10 years.

Dutch insect farmer Protix has raised over $100m to date. Global competitors include Canada’s Enterra Feed and US company EnviroFlight. 

Rabobank, a Dutch lender, predicts that global insect production could reach 500k tonnes a year by 2030, up from just 10k tonnes in 2020.

https://sifted.eu/articles/innovafeed-animal-feed-insects

The World’s Biggest Bug Farm Wants to Decarbonize Fishmeal

With five floors of insect incubators, Innovafeed’s newly expanded plant in France can produce 15,000 tons of insect protein per year. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-04-28/the-world-s-biggest-bug-farm-wants-to-decarbonize-fishmeal?in_source=embedded-checkout-banner

Research says that people want sustainable food

 More than half of U.S. consumers say they want sustainable food, according to a 2019 survey by the International Food Information Council, a nonprofit. Three out of fivepeople in the U.K. are willing to pay more for environmentally friendly food options, according to a survey of 1,000 people by professional services firm GHD released in November.