November 2, 2022

Hamburg’s MicroHarvest raises 8.5 million euros to build a protein production system

Responding to the pressing need for sustainable alternatives to meet global protein growth, Hamburg-based biotech start-up MicroHarvest has raised €8.5 million in funding. The new capital will allow the startup to commercialize its process for producing single-cell proteins.

The Series A round was led by Astanor Ventures and Happiness Capital and backed by Faber and existing investor FoodLabs. The platform will use the new funding to expand its R&D team, build a pilot plant in Lisbon, and accelerate to commercial-scale production.

The German startup is tackling the growing demand for alternative protein ingredients for human nutrition, a $14 billion market. It aims to provide better, healthier and tastier protein, produced sustainably using the power of microorganisms. With their single-cell protein production system, they address the pressing need for sustainable alternatives to meet the growing global demand for protein.

The company says its proprietary technology enables the production of proteins using bacteria at a speed and efficiency that far exceeds existing approaches. Being able to quickly scale up production is key to becoming a relevant player in the B2B ingredients market. It enables decentralized production of sustainable, nutritious, high quality and safe proteins.

Katelijne Bekers, co-founder and CEO of MicroHarvest, said, “We have a strong shared vision to create impact in our food systems, using the power of nature. Our goal is to have impact at scale, bringing the protein production system faster to market.

Arnout Dijkhuizen, Chief Investment Officer at Astanor Ventures, added: “The technology is enabling highly localized protein production, a key element in achieving food independence as agri-food supply chains face increasing pressure at home. global scale.

Eric Ng, CEO of Happiness Capital, concluded, “As various aspects of our food supply face many challenges today, we see a critical need for new ways to produce nutritious protein in a sustainable way. From the start, we were deeply impressed with MicroHarvest’s technology and their streamlined path to production.