Pitch: France-base startup using Solid-State Fermentation to produce flavouring ingredients, notably for the plant-based industry.
Source: Fungu’it
ID card
- HQ: France
- Founded: 2022
- Funding: €4M (seed round completed in June 2025)
- Corporate investors: Ø
- Partnerships: Ø
- Innovations: solid-state fermentation of filamentous fungi to convert flaxseed, sunflower press cakes & legume brisures into natural flavour powders
- Competitors: limited in flavour (even if the appetite for solid-state fermentation is increasing)
More insights
- Initially the startup was focused on “raw” protein production, but switched to flavour ingredients due to the high costs of scaling up production (and also the low demand for an expensively produced raw protein).
- One ingredient is already being commercialised (at small-scale, in partnership with a plant-based meat startup), a meaty umiami flavour for plant-based meat.
- Another ingredient is currently being developed: a chocolate flavour which can replace up to 25% of cocoa contents of a product.
- This alignes with both sustainability and scarcity concerns around cocoa and could be an interesting alternative to cocoa substitutes, notably for brands seeking to keep a cocoa in their recipes.
- The recent funding (half equity, half public grants and loans) should support the scale up of the production (of the umiami ingredient), R&D and commercialisation efforts.
- We observe a growing interest for solid-state fermentation, notably as submerged fermentation is having a lot of scaling and ressource consumption issues (water and energy consumption notably).
For Symrise
Why did we select the startup? While this is still an early-stage startup, it aligns really well with Symrise’s core business on flavours.
Also, the startup has to go beyond the development of the ingredients and find ways to support food brands in using them. This is where a partnership could make sense.
Why now? The current funding round (which is a feat in the current depressed FoodTech investment ecosystem) is putting Fungu’it “on the map”. Engaging with it now would probably be better than waiting too long.
Source: Fungu’it