bigideaventures
  • Accelerator
  • Funds
  • Portfolio
  • BIFC
  • Team
  • Media
  • Careers
  • Contact
  • Apply
Select Page

Southeast Asia’s food innovation scene bloomed last year with Shiok Meats, Alchemy Foodtech among top funded

by admin | Jul 1, 2020 | Press

Shiok Meats recently secured $3 million in bridge funding as it prepares to begin raising its Series A round, co-founder and CEO Sandhya Sriram told AFN.

The funding comes as new research from AgFunder identified ‘Innovative Foods’ as one of the most active agrifoodtech categories in VC dealmaking in Southeast Asia last year, with Shiok Meats among the alt-protein and food reformulation players from the region to secure funding.

The Singaporean startup is developing cultured seafood, including prawn, crab, and lobster meat. Its initial focus is on shrimp, which as already made it into a test batch of siew mai dumplings and is expected to be available in select Singapore restaurants sometime next year.

Among the investors in the bridge round were UK firms Agronomics and Impact Venture, US trust VegInvest, and UAE-based Mindshift Capital, said Sriram. The deal takes its total funding to date to $7.6 million.

This latest investment will be used “to further [our] R&D and also bridge into manufacturing,” she said.

“We are currently in the midst of raising our Series A round to setup our first manufacturing plant in Singapore to commercialize in the next two to three years.”

Shiok Meats earlier raised $4.6 million for its April 2019 seed round. In its first investment in a so-called ‘clean meat’ company, Y Combinator participated in that seed round, alongside Henry Soesanto, the CEO of Philippines-based food manufacturer Monde Nissin. (Well-known mycoprotein brand Quorn was acquired by Monde Nissin for $831 million in 2015.)

Southeast Asia’s top funded Innovate Foods startups in 2019. Image credit: AgFunder ASEAN Agrifoodtech Investment Report 2020

According to AgFunder’s first-ever ASEAN Agrifoodtech Investment Report, which was released yesterday, Shiok Meats’ seed round was the largest venture deal involving an Innovative Foods startup in the region during 2019.

Among the other Singapore-based startups in this category to secure funding last year were Alchemy Foodtech, which raised $1.8 million in seed funding for its novel active food ingredients aimed at combatting diabetes, and Hoow Foods, which is reformulating fat and sugar-heavy food items and netted $1.2 million. Plento, which is developing plant-based and insect-based proteins, raised an undisclosed amount of pre-seed funding from VC and accelerator Brinc.

Beyond the city-state, Thailand’s JuiceInnov8 banked $500,000 seed funding from 500 Startups. It’s working on microbial sugar-reduction tech for the beverages market. In Malaysia, Ento raised an undisclosed amount for its line of snacks and ingredients made from crickets and soldier flies; while compatriot Phuture Foods, which recently released a plant-based minced ‘pork’ product, also received funding.

Given that Southeast Asian agrifoodtech startups as a whole raised $423 million in 2019, Innovative Foods’ total funding figure of $9.5 million looks rather small by comparison. But with 12 deals it was the third most active category by number of transactions, with only the downstream segments of In-store Retail & Restaurant Tech and Online restaurants & Mealkits seeing more in the way of dealmaking.

Recent Posts

  • Founder’s Story: Fern Ho co-founder and CEO at The Leaf Protein Co.
  • The Big Idea Podcast: Food (Episode 38 Väcka)
  • Founder’s Story: Meet Alison Fagan founder and CEO at CF Foods Group
  • 3 innovators that are shaping the next stage of food innovation in Singapore
  • Spanish startup Cocuus raises €2,5M in Funding to scale its 3D bioprinting technology for the production of alternative proteins

Archives

  • June 2022
  • April 2022
  • February 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • November 2018
  • July 2018
  • April 2018
  • February 2018
  • March 2017
  • December 2016
  • July 2016
  • July 2015

Categories

  • Blog
  • Events
  • Podcast
  • Portfolio
  • Press
  • Research Paper
  • Uncategorized
Apply New York Apply Singapore Apply Paris
  • Contact
  • Funds
  • Investing
  • Partners
  • Portfolio
  • Foodivate
  • Research
  • Terms
  • Anti Spam
  • Copyright
  • DMCA
  • FTC
  • Privacy
  • Social Media
New York

88 Pine St., 14th Floor
New York, NY 10005

Singapore

No. 9 Chin Bee Drive,
SG, 619860

Paris

Station F, 5 Parv. Alan Turing 75013 Paris, France 

Newsletter
Stay on top of our latest news.
Loading
Don’t worry, we won’t spam you.
© 2020 Big Idea Ventures. All Rights Reserved
  • Follow
  • Follow
  • Follow
  • Follow
 
Required 'Candidate' login to applying this job. Click here to logout And try again
 

Login to your account

  • Forgot Password?

Reset Password

  • Already have an account? Login

Enter the username or e-mail you used in your profile. A password reset link will be sent to you by email.

Close
 

Answers

 

Account Activation

Before you can login, you must active your account with the code sent to your email address. If you did not receive this email, please check your junk/spam folder. Click here to resend the activation email. If you entered an incorrect email address, you will need to re-register with the correct email address.