Kost Capital, a brand new Danish enterprise capital fund, is out to convey higher meals to extra individuals.
Common accomplice Bodil Sidén began the agency with LPs Kasper Hulthin, Christian Tang-Jespersen, Mark Emil Hermansen and Jacob Lee Ørnstrand.
Kost, which implies “weight-reduction plan” within the Scandinavian language, nevertheless, it’ll most like be troublesome to stay to at least one whereas working there. That’s as a result of Kost Capital shares area with Kost Studio, a meals growth studio that doubles as a check kitchen for universities and markets to collaborate and develop novel meals merchandise.
Sidén declined to say how a lot of the €25 million was raised to this point, however did say backers embody Danish sovereign fund EIFO and Kost’s founding restricted companions.
Kost Capital invests in pre-seed and seed startups throughout Europe, specializing in B2B inputs in the way forward for meals. It has already made three investments: Estonian palm oil alternative firm Äio, Numi, a French toddler formulation firm and Danish ingredient firm Nutrumami.
Sidén’s journey to enterprise capital began in a fairly distinctive place. She was in Swedish politics as a member of the Moderates’ nationwide social gathering board, a press secretary to the Fredrik Reinfeldt authorities and labored for the Swedish ministers.
“I’ve at all times been very keen about societal change — my mother and father are migrant lecturers, so I’ve at all times been very a lot uncovered to justice and world points,” Sidén instructed TechCrunch. “Then I joined the world of tech, engaged on communications within the Nordics for Uber the place I realized every thing about huge tech and the way you scale tech firms and marketplaces from a neighborhood setting.”
She then partnered with two Uber colleagues to kind a enterprise capital fund in Stockholm that did hands-on firm constructing. For instance working with technical firms that lacked a approach to commercialize.
After two funds, Sidén obtained into contact with the traders behind Kost, who had been searching for a common accomplice to assist construct a platform and setting technique. That’s what they’ve been doing for the previous 12 months with the assistance of senior affiliate Paul Archambeau, she mentioned.
Kost’s funding thesis takes a nod from Sidén’s political origins and from the notion that meals is powered by the bioeconomy. Acknowledging a rising inhabitants, local weather change, meals waste, well being points and coverage modifications, Sidén says extra funding is required into meals tech.
“Trying on the 5 coming years, all macrotrends communicate for it, and it’s so beneath invested,” she mentioned. “When you have a look at the place the cash has gone, it’s really like logistics and types and never even meals. It’s a large alternative, and hopefully additionally generalist VCs will come again into the area. They took a number of hits at first with numerous B2C, and it was exhausting to evaluate various kinds of enterprise fashions, however I believe that may change now.”
That mentioned, one in every of Sidén’s milestones is for Kost to “be the perfect co-investor in Europe” with meals tech and generalist traders searching for a agency with scale-up experience and food-specialized talents.
In the meantime, meals tech is having a second in Europe. Not solely are we seeing larger-than-average investments being made, for instance, into Infinite Roots, which makes proteins from mycelium, however extra funds being raised as effectively. This week, Eatable Adventures, an accelerator serving to to create and assist meals tech in Spain and Italy, mentioned it closed on half of a €30 million funding automobile referred to as Europe Foodtech Acceleration Fund I SCSp.
We’re additionally seeing extra authorities assist. For instance, the UK is sinking £2 billion into biotechnology, significantly round meals. The European Union has its personal €50 million plans to scale precision fermentation, whereas Aleph Farms was granted regulatory approval in Israel for its cultivated meat.
