SEADLING Founder Simon Davis on Bringing Long-Term Economic Benefit to SEA’s Seaweed Farmers
Biotech startup SEADLING, founded by Simon Davis, supplies Elkhorn sea moss seedlings to smallholder farmers in Malaysian Borneo and processes the harvest into fermented, functional ingredients. In 2025 the company closed a $1 million seed round and opened a second processing facility in Sabah, expanding capacity and exporting products to the US, Singapore and India. SEADLING’s model eliminates middlemen with direct buy‑back contracts, offers training and quality control, and targets pet food, plant health and future human nutrition markets. The firm aims to secure GMP+ certification and broaden its geographic reach in 2026.
Inside Pepper’s Push to Digitize Foodservice’s Long Tail, Armed with $50m and Agentic AI
Pepper, a New York‑based startup founded in 2019, closed a $50 million Series C led by Lead Edge Capital to expand its AI‑powered, end‑to‑end platform for independent foodservice distributors. The solution automates order capture from email, voicemail and PDFs, streamlines payments through...
Fertilizer Spike Adds up to $35/Acre for US Corn as Iran Crisis Deepens
Rising fertilizer prices triggered by the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz have created a sharp supply shock for nitrogen, phosphate and sulfur products. Rabobank estimates the urea price surge adds up to $35 per acre to US corn...
Miyoko’s Plant-Based Butters, Cream Cheeses, Will Return to Shelves in May, Says New Owner
Miyoko’s core plant‑based butters and cream cheeses will return to select U.S. retailers in May after being acquired by Prosperity Organic Foods. The acquisition followed Miyoko’s entry into an Assignment for the Benefit of Creditors last November, ending a period...
Why Regen Ag Producers Can’t Get Capital—And What Alternative Lender Steward Is Doing About It
Steward, founded by Dan Miller in 2015, offers a direct‑to‑investor lending platform that finances regenerative‑agriculture projects ignored by traditional banks. The model lets individuals invest as little as $100, underwriting loans for farmers, processors and regional food‑system infrastructure. Notable deals...
🎥 Fermelanta Introduces “Unprecedented’ Number of Genes Into Microbes to Make Rare Plant Compounds
Japanese startup Fermelanta has developed a platform that inserts nearly 30 plant genes into a single E. coli strain, allowing microbial fermentation of complex, rare plant secondary metabolites in one step. The technology bypasses traditional CRISPR tools and promises cheaper,...
🎥 As Cocoa Prices Swing, Kawa Project Offers an Upcycled Alternative From Spent Coffee Grounds
Kawa Project has developed an upcycled powder made from spent coffee grounds that mimics industrial cocoa in taste and functionality. The product offers a more stable supply chain and price consistency compared with volatile cocoa markets. Economically, the alternative becomes...
David Protein Lawsuit: Plaintiffs Home in on Calories From Protein in Final Bid to Make Antitrust Case
Three snack manufacturers—OWN Your Hunger, Lighten Up Foods, and Defiant Foods—have filed a third amended antitrust complaint against David Protein, alleging the company monopolized the low‑calorie fat replacer EPG after acquiring Epogee. The plaintiffs claim they invested $449,000 in R&D,...
AgriFood Signals: Circulate Capital Closes $220m Fund, All G GRAS Approval, Unilever & McCormick
Circulate Capital announced the first close of its second climate‑focused fund, securing $220 million to back agri‑food startups tackling emissions. European and Asian innovators also drew sizable capital, including Standing Ovation’s $34 million round, Nature Robots’ €4 million ($4.4 million) for AI‑driven robotics, and...
🎥 Digital Twins: Heritable Ag Combines AI, Genomics and Environmental Data to Slash R&D Timelines
Heritable Agriculture, a Google X spin‑out, is using AI‑driven digital twins, high‑resolution environmental data, and advanced genomics to accelerate crop breeding. The platform can simulate plants at 10‑meter resolution worldwide and pinpoint causative genes with unprecedented accuracy, validated through real‑field...
Inside Cairnspring Mill’s Bold New Model for Financing Regenerative Food Systems
Cairnspring Mills has assembled a hybrid financing package to build its 27,000‑square‑foot Blue Mountain Mill, slated for completion in 2026. The structure blends a $10 million subordinate loan from Steward, a $5 million equity stake from the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla...
How Chestnut Carbon Built a Blueprint for Financing Carbon-Capture Projects
Chestnut Carbon, a U.S. afforestation developer backed by Kimmeridge, secured a $210 million credit facility led by JP Morgan to finance a 25‑year, 60,000‑acre forest restoration project for Microsoft. The deal pairs a long‑term off‑take of 7.44 million tons of carbon credits with...
Beyond Glyphosate: Quercus Bio Targets Weeds with Designer Proteins
Herbicide resistance is driving a search for new weed‑control tools, and Quercus Biosolutions is pioneering AI‑designed mini proteins that act like chemicals while offering biological benefits. Using protein‑structure prediction technology from drug discovery, the startup creates proteins that can enter...
Persian Gulf Fertilizer Crisis: Global Food Prices Could Rise 12-18% by the End of 2026, Warns Helios AI
Helios AI warns that if the Persian Gulf conflict ends tomorrow, global food prices could climb 12‑18% above pre‑crisis levels by the end of 2026 and rise further in early 2027. The startup’s model flags three sequential shocks: soaring fuel...
South Korea Says ‘AI Is No Longer a Choice’ as Agrifoodtech Funding Jumps 171%
South Korea unveiled the Agriculture and Rural Artificial Intelligence Transformation (AX) strategy, declaring AI essential for farm survival and competitiveness by 2026. The plan targets small‑ and mid‑size growers with shared machinery hubs, smart processing centers, and AI‑driven livestock grading....
How Lumi AI Helps CPGs Find ‘Multi-Million-Dollar Opportunities’ Hidden in Their Supply Chain Data
Lumi AI, founded in 2023, offers a natural‑language interface that plugs into ERP systems like SAP and Oracle, letting CPG and food‑retail teams query supply‑chain data instantly. The startup has secured $3.7 million in seed funding and counts Kroger, Growmark and...
Guest Article: Food’s Fossil Reckoning; Energy Crises Are the New Normal, and Food Is Next
The February 2026 closure of the Strait of Hormuz after an Israeli‑Iran clash halted 97% of maritime traffic, sending Brent crude toward $120 a barrel and triggering a 32% jump in urea fertilizer prices to $683 per metric ton. The...
UC Davis Launches Food & Health Angels to Back Foodtech Startups as GLP-1 ‘Tsunami’ Approaches
UC Davis has launched Food & Health Angels (FH Angels), an angel network that pools capital from industry veterans to back early‑stage foodtech startups targeting metabolic health. The network allows investors to contribute as little as $10,000 or as much as...
Private Equity in Agtech: Disciplined, Selective, and Increasingly Hard to Ignore
Private equity (PE) has traditionally been a peripheral player in agtech, deterred by long commercialization cycles and low recurring revenue. In 2024‑2025 PE activity nudged upward, yet less than 10% of the 60+ agtech M&A deals involved a financial buyer,...
Crop Diagnostix Launches RNA-Based Crop Health Early-Warning System
California startup Crop Diagnostix has launched an RNA‑sequencing based early‑warning system that reads plant gene expression to flag nutrient, water, pathogen and disease stress weeks before visual symptoms appear. Leveraging a proprietary biomarker library and AI models trained on thousands...
DJI Appeal Sets Stage for Legal Showdown over Future of US Ag Spray Drone Market
Chinese drone leader DJI has filed a Ninth Circuit appeal against the FCC's December 22 ruling that places all new foreign‑made drones and critical components on a covered list, effectively halting FCC authorization for future imports. The decision has already...
From Rocks to Row Crops, TerraClear Broadens Its Capabilities with Launch of Fully Autonomous Robot
TerraClear has launched TerraScout, a fully autonomous robot that captures high‑resolution field imagery for rock‑mapping and weed identification across broad‑acre row crops. The machine can map over 1,000 acres per day at speeds up to 15 mph, collecting more than 4 billion...
Frontier AI Heads to the Farm with Carbon Robotics’ Large Plant Model
Carbon Robotics has launched its Large Plant Model (LPM), an on‑device AI system that can instantly recognize and classify weeds and crops across diverse fields. Built on a dataset of more than 150 million plant images, LPM eliminates the need for...