2024 was a year of stabilisation for global foodtech investments, with a minor 6% decline in funding. However, due to current economic uncertainties surrounding tariffs, funding has begun to decline again in Q1 2025, with only $2.2B invested.
This is not positive news, as funding was starting to bounce back in some regions, notably North America (which still accounts for 50% of the funding in Q1).
As for the topics covered in this watch, among all the elements spotted, here are the top 5 insights that caught our attention:
- Meat alternatives are still having a hard time (cultivated meat startups fail to raise funds, and if they do so it is at very discounted valuation while multiple biomass fermentation and plant-based players are doing poorly). However, we think that we are nearing the “bottom” for this category.
- We observed a surge of appetite for precision fermentation CDMOs (multiple deals and announcements in the quarter) combined with investments in technologies to make scaling up easier.
- Speaking of scaling up, a McKinsey study showed that the potential for alternative proteins (notably precision fermentation and cellular agriculture is about $300B by 2050. But that $250B in investments will be required to reach that level).
- Molecular farming is moving to open fields trials and we should have soon some yield data to confirm the viability of the technology.
- Oobli, a leading startup using precision fermentation to create new sugars, raised $18M, notably from Ingredion, with whom it will partner to commercialise its ingredients.
Top news from all the different categories
Watch: categorisation by product type
Alternative proteins (meat, dairy, coffee, cocoa)
Taste enhancers (sugar, fat & beyond)
New processing technologies & AI
Regulatory updates & government support
Natural ingredients
Health-Driven Innovations
Investments & state of ecosystem
Consumer insights (Q1 + April 2025)
Categorisation by technology
Tags used to categorise some of the watch items by technology rather than product type