INDIGO AG TECH SERIES

The Swiss company will use Ginkgo’s bioengineering platform to sustainably develop versions of products “that are only available in minute quantities in nature.” ( FoodIngredientsFirst)

🇺🇸🇨🇭 Ginkgo Bioworks partners with flavor developer Givaudan. Wing is nearing 100,000 deliveries since it launched in 2019 as part of Alphabet’s experimental research division. The Google-affiliated startup also delivered 1,700 snack packs and 1,200 roast chickens in the Logan area of Brisbane, Australia, over the last year, according to the company. 🇦🇺 Alphabet drone startup Wing delivers 10,000 cups of coffee in one year. Allklear has created a freeze-dried ‘Future Salad’ containing the nutritional value of five bowls’-worth of salad in a single sachet. Gobi Partners led the round with Chartwell Ventures, Vectr Ventures, Novel Tycoon, and Miss Hong Kong 2020 winner Lisa-Marie Tse also participating. 🇭🇰 Allklear scores HK$10 million ($1.29 million) in pre-Series A funding. The startup earned a certification from California designating it as a dairy, which allows it to use the word “cheese” in its labeling. Eleven-time NBA All-Star Chris Paul participated in the round. 🇺🇸🏀 Misha’s Kind Foods closes $3 million seed round for plant-based cheeses. The startup’s goal is to digitalize antiquated testing, inspection, and certification processes for the ag commodities sector using computer vision, machine learning, and IoT. 🇪🇸🇦🇷 ZoomAgri raises $3.3 million for ‘vision-as-a-service’ food inspection tech. The startup build robots that can do jobs such as mapping fields, killing weeds, and no-till drilling. 🇬🇧 Small Robot Company raises $5.5 million in equity crowdfunding campaign.

The Sacramento, California-based startup has developed a range of soil testing products and AI-driven analysis tools to help farmers better understand their land’s soil microbiome.

INDIGO AG TECH SERIES

🇺🇸 Soil biology specialist Biome Makers bags $15 million Series B funding. Corteva’s carbon initiative will use Carbon by Indigo’s “advanced capabilities for measuring and verifying carbon sequestration and greenhouse gas abatement at scale.” ( AFN) 🇺🇸 Corteva Agriscience and Indigo Ag to collaborate on carbon credits. The e-commerce company reported its first-ever quarterly profit for Q2 2021, and said that profits from this and future quarters will be allocated to a new ’10 Billion Agriculture Initiative’ which will “address critical needs in the agricultural sector and rural areas.” ( AFN) 🇨🇳 Pinduoduo reports first-ever profit, commits $1.5 billion to agtech and rural development. Alexandria Venture Investments, a unit of $30 billion real estate investment trust Alexandria Real Estate Equities, also participated. ADM Ventures, the VC arm of the global food and commodities company Archer-Daniels-Midland, invested in the fund.

🇺🇸 AgFunder raises $21 million for its New Carnivore alt-protein fund. The Covid-19 pandemic led many restaurants and foodservice outlets to accelerate their adoption of ‘contactless’ tech like that offered by Toast. Toast said it plans to raise $100 million from the listing, though Bloomberg noted that was likely to be a “placeholder amount” that would likely change. 🇺🇸 Restaurant payment platform Toast files for IPO. In news from the world of foodtech and agtech over the past seven days, restaurant payments platform Toast filed for an IPO in the US while VC firm AgFunder closed its latest alt-protein fund, New Carnivore, on $21 million

Indigo ag tech