Kost Capital, a brand new Danish enterprise capital fund, is out to carry higher meals to extra folks.
Normal accomplice Bodil Sidén began the agency with LPs Kasper Hulthin, Christian Tang-Jespersen, Mark Emil Hermansen and Jacob Lee Ørnstrand.
Kost, which implies “diet” within the Scandinavian language, nevertheless, it is going to most like be tough to stay to 1 whereas working there. That’s as a result of Kost Capital shares house with Kost Studio, a meals growth studio that doubles as a take a look at 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 date, 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 method 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 always been very passionate about societal change — my parents are migrant teachers, so I’ve always been very much exposed to justice and global issues,” Sidén advised TechCrunch. “Then I joined the world of tech, working on communications in the Nordics for Uber where I learned everything about big tech and how you scale tech companies and marketplaces from a local setting.”
She then partnered with two Uber colleagues to type a enterprise capital fund in Stockholm that did hands-on firm constructing. For instance working with technical firms that lacked a technique to commercialize.
After two funds, Sidén received into contact with the buyers behind Kost, who had been on the lookout for a normal 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 stated.
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.
“Looking at the five coming years, all macrotrends speak for it, and it’s so under invested,” she stated. “If you look at where the money has gone, it’s actually like logistics and brands and not even food. It’s a massive opportunity, and hopefully also generalist VCs will come back into the space. They took a few hits in the beginning with a lot of B2C, and it was hard to assess different types of business models, but I think that might change now.”
That stated, certainly one of Sidén’s milestones is for Kost to “be the best co-investor in Europe” with meals tech and generalist buyers on the lookout 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, stated it closed on half of a €30 million investment vehicle 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.
