Other news

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Equipment suppliers accelerate fermentation scale-up capabilities

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• GEA (Germany), global leader in the development of bioreactors, invested €4M to relocate its scale-up centre, integrating precision fermentation, cell cultivation and biomanufacturing capabilities to support companies from pilot trials to industrial production.
• Tetra Pak (Sweden) launched its first industrial bioreactor, designed to support fermentation scale-up from pilot to commercial production while reducing operating costs by up to 12% and investment costs by up to 8%.

Comment: major food equipment suppliers are increasingly investing in fermentation infrastructure, positioning themselves as key enablers of the industrial scale-up of precision fermentation and other biomanufacturing technologies.

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NotCo continued its shift from plant-based manufacturing to AI-powered product development

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• NotCo, a Chilean startup originally founded as a plant-based consumer brand, sold its Brazilian business to local firm Ferrara and reportedly closed its Mexican operations after failing to secure a buyer, following previous divestments in Argentina and Uruguay.
• Chile is now the only market where NotCo directly manages its consumer business, which could reportedly also be sold if it does not reach profitability by year-end.

Comment: NotCo is moving from a B2C plant-based food business towards a B2B technology model, licensing its AI product development platform to major food manufacturers.

Green Queen

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Proxy Foods raised $6M to scale its AI platform for food product development

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• Proxy Foods, a US startup, raised $6M to expand its AI-native R&D platform for food and beverage companies and develop AI agents for product innovation.
• The platform integrates companies’ R&D knowledge and predicts formulation performance before lab testing, reportedly cutting development iterations by 80%, reformulation costs by 2–10% and prototyping from months to days.

synbiobeta

Quick news

Artificial Intelligence: Again, a Danish biomanufacturing startup using multiple feedstocks including captured carbon, acquired US biotech Genomatica, combining Genomatica’s AI-driven molecule and pathway discovery with Again’s industrial scale-up capabilities for technology licensing, co-development and manufacturing.