Burgs Foods, a young Dutch insect-based food producer, has raised funding from early-stage venture capitalist Unknown Group. The funding is to aid Burgs Foods in its goal for every European to eat at least one meal per week made of insect meat by 2030. Under the established brand, De Krekerij, Burgs Foods, a StartLife startup … Continue reading Cricket and Grasshopper Meat Producer Burgs Foods Is Served Funding
In April, StartLife welcomes its sixth cohort of startups that help build a future-proof food ecosystem. The selected startups introduce novel technologies and solutions including 3D food printing, computational designed enzymes, botanical biopesticide and AI-driven greenhouses. On June 24th the startups present themselves during a live online pitching event. Let’s take you on a trip … Continue reading Meet These 8 New Impact-driven Agrifoodtech Startups
Behind every successful entrepreneur, you can be sure to find one, if not many, invaluable business mentors who shepherded them along the way. Mentors can do wonders for you and your startup, but there are rules of engagement to be taken into consideration. Caroline Bijkerk, who connects StartLife’s startups with mentors, highlights six important do’s … Continue reading 6 Do’s And Don’ts In Startup Mentorship
On Tuesday 20 April, we are organizing a virtual matchmaking event for StartLife’s affiliated agrifood startups that are interested in a mentorship with one, or more, of our startup mentors. Seats are limited, so make sure to sign up fast! If you are looking for a mentor as an objective sparring partner, who may provide … Continue reading Meet Your Mentor – Matchmaking Event
Ellipsis Drive, a provider of a plug-and-play solution for using, sharing, and selling spatial data, announced today its seed round funding of €1.9 million. This funding round was led by Promus Ventures, through its Luxembourg based space investment fund, Orbital Ventures, and had participation from Techstars. “We are excited to back the team at Ellipsis. … Continue reading Ellipsis Drive Raises €1.9M For Its Spatial Data-Sharing Platform
Rival Foods, a Dutch gastronomy startup that produces whole-cuts of plant-based meat, announced a partnership with LIVEKINDLY Collective that aims to fasten the development of a perfect plant-based chicken, bringing a tasty and sustainable alternative for mindful consumers. Rival Foods, a StartLife startup alumnus, has developed and commercialized a production process to transform plant-based ingredients … Continue reading Rival Foods Partners Up to Develop Juicy Whole-cut Plant-based Chicken
Joar Nilssen is StartLife’s startup analyst. He is responsible for scouting and analyzing agtech and biotech startups. Each year, he meets hundreds of innovative startups and quickly discovers changing patterns and movements in the agrifood markets. Today, Joar shares what he is observing in the current agrifoodtech startup climate. Global trends Admittedly, enough pieces have … Continue reading Trends in The Agrifoodtech Startup Climate
Worldwide the food supply chain is in dire need of innovations that aid the transition to a healthier and sustainable food system. Agrifoodtech startups with high potential solutions are now given an extra hand to get from pre-revenue stage to growth. Pymwymic, Europe’s oldest impact-driven growth investor, and StartLife, Europe’s first agrifoodtech accelerator, have partnered … Continue reading StartLife And Pymwymic Facilitating Growth Of Disruptive Agrifoodtech Startups
Are you eager to help accelerate agrifoodtech startups that shape a sustainable food system? And do you have strong (online) detective skills? StartLife is looking for a Startup Scout. In this position you fulfill a key role in our startup accelerator: scouting promising food- & agtech startups that we give a boost forward with our … Continue reading Vacancy: Startup Scout at StartLife
On 9 December we welcomed hundreds of members of our global F&A community to our Jubilee Graduation Day. We celebrated the graduation of nine startups of the StartLife Accelerate Fall 2020 cohort as well as 10-years of StartLife. In case you missed it, or want to relive the moment, we are happy to share the … Continue reading Highlights of StartLife Jubilee Graduation Day
Anterra Capital, one of largest dedicated agrifoodtech venture capital firms in the world and a pioneer in the sector, has entered into an investor partnership with StartLife. Together we will back entrepreneurs who are building a healthier and sustainable food system. The partnership is an expansion of years of fruitful collaboration. The announcement is made … Continue reading Anterra Capital Strengthens Ties with StartLife As Investor Partner
On 9 December we will celebrate StartLife’s 10 year anniversary in combination with the graduation of the fifth group of startups of our renowned acceleration program. We cordially invite our entire F&A community to join our virtual Jubilee Graduation Day. REGISTER FOR STARTLIFE’S JUBILEE GRADUATION DAY The year 2020 is very special to StartLife. We … Continue reading Join StartLife’s 10 Year Anniversary Celebration
Brief updates from StartLife Alumni and Community members. Major Breakthrough For Malaria-fighter In2care A malaria-free world? The chances of pulling off this immense mission have taken a great leap forward. The Wageningen-based company InCare Trading company has developed and tested a solution that reduces the chances of malaria infections with an unprecedented result of more … Continue reading StartLife Alumni Updates – October 2020
Tech startups which help make the agrifood value chain more sustainable can rely another three years on the strategic partnership between StartLife and SHIFT Invest, the largest seed and early-stage impact investor for agrifood, biobased and circular sectors in the Netherlands. StartLife helps ambitious agrifoodtech startups to swiftly validate their business and become investor ready. … Continue reading Shift Invest and StartLife Prolong Impact-driven Investment Partnership
Today, the Brazilian juice giant Citrosuco announces a strategic partnership with StartLife. The company has teamed up with the StartLife to gain better access to European startups, in particular those with new technologies that can help the juice value chain become 100% sustainable. Citrosuco offers startups funding and technical and operational expertise. As one of … Continue reading Citrosuco And StartLife On Joint Quest To Make Juice Industry Fully Sustainable
Efficiently stack packages and objects of different sizes? With the intelligent on-the-fly mixed palletizer software that can make robots deal with flexible situations in a smarter way, this becomes a breeze. Viroteq makes grateful and efficient use of the latest machine vision and deep-learning techniques. Thanks to a fund managed by Horizon Flevoland, the company … Continue reading Viroteq Attracts Funding To Build Smart Stacking and Packaging Robot Software
The Dutch Foodtech company Verdify, a StartLife alumni, has raised a seed investment of €750.000. Two private investors and AI-investment company Genzai enable the development of the world’s first AI-powered platform for fully personalized and guideline-based nutrition. Verdify will use the funding to create the first international recipe platform with fully adaptive recipes. The company … Continue reading Verdify Raises €750k To Create First AI-powered Platform For Personalized Nutrition
How do we provide technology solutions to global challenges? Think along and participate in the online event CES Unveiled Conference: ‘Tech Solutions for Global Challenges’ on 15 October. Power of innovation The conference is about ‘The Power of Technology to Address Global Challenges’. Leading companies and investors, technology influencers and European ministers will speak about … Continue reading CES Unveiled Conference: Tech Solutions for Global Challenges
With support of StartLife and Oost NL the Russian company Grain Improvers has settled in Wageningen. The founders of Grain Improvers have many years of experience in the Russian flour and baking market and have developed patented natural enzymes based grain improvers, which application is particularly relevant for flour, starch and gluten producers. Grain Improvers … Continue reading Russian Grain Improvers Spinning Out To Wageningen
Sundew, an innovative bioventure targeting aquatic pests and diseases, has received €1.34 million from the Novo Nordisk Foundation’s BioInnovation Institute, bringing its total funding raised to date to €1.4M. This funding will allow Sundew to bring its first product, for the treatment of the fish disease ‘Ich’, to market. Aquatic pests and diseases are a … Continue reading Bioventure Sundew Raises €1.4M In Seed Financing
We have selected nine European startups for our Fall 2020 cohort. The startups are introducing new technologies that tackle global challenges such as diminishing food waste, boosting sustainable production and enhancing productivity. In the coming months the startups will be diving deep into their businesses. Their ‘graduation’ is due on 9 December. According to McKinsey, … Continue reading StartLife Selects 9 European Startups That Help Reshape The Food Industry
Brief updates from StartLife Alumni and Community members. Orbisk launches international consortium co-funded by €1.2M Eurostars grant On a global scale, a mind-boggling amount of 1.3 billion tons (1.300.000.000.000 kgs) of food goes to waste, every single year. Food waste fighter Orbisk has just secured a EUR 1.2 million Eurostars grant to help make a … Continue reading StartLife Alumni Updates – September 2020
The success of a startup depends on a mixture of skills, hard work, perseverance, a bit of luck and the right support. At StartLife we believe that startup mentors are truly an invaluable resource to help getting your dreams off the ground. We even dare to say that every startup needs a mentor. But why? … Continue reading Interview: Why Every Startup Needs A Mentor
StartLife is excited to announce a new partnership with HLO Branding Agency aimed at helping young agrifood brands to grow and stand out from the crowd. Startups have loads of great ideas for innovative products and services, but it can sometimes be challenging to market those brilliant ideas in a clear and attractive way that … Continue reading StartLife Takes Startup Branding To Next Level With HLO Branding Agency
StartLife and Normec Foodcare have joined forces to help innovative food(tech) startups get their impactful food products and technologies faster to market. By making highly specialized food compliance knowledge and services more and more easily accessible to food startups, they want to help them overcome the daunting task of figuring out all requirements they must … Continue reading Normec Foodcare Joins StartLife for Aiding FoodTech Startups
The EU has laid out the ambition to become the first climate-neutral continent by 2050, also referred to as the ‘European Green Deal’. A healthier and more sustainable EU food system is the cornerstone of this deal. Soon the EU will call for projects that will test, pilot and demonstrate innovative systemic solutions in the … Continue reading Join The EU Farm To Fork Strategy Consortium
Last July Lidl and StartLife jointly organized the second Future Goods Week. Six sustainable food products from promising startups were made available in all Lidl stores in the Netherlands. What are the lessons learned? Are consumers truly interested in sustainable food? And will there be a third edition next year? Let’s find out. “Due to … Continue reading What Lidl And Food Startups Learned From Second Future Goods Week
Dutch Health Ingredients company Nutrileads, a StartLife alumni, has announced the closing of a Series B financing round of €6.5 million. The company will use the capital to launch its the immune-enhancing ingredient Xtramune and to progress its portfolio of health ingredients. The capital is provided by Icos Capital together with Goeie-Grutten and existing shareholders … Continue reading NutriLeads Attracts €6.5M Series B Funding
Do you want to use your passion for hospitality and administration to make a difference for the Startlife team? Are you an enthusiastic and pro-active Office Manager? Please read further! You will never have a dull moment in this job: you work in a young and dynamic team of 14 people on Wageningen Campus in … Continue reading Vacancy: Office Manager Startlife
The Netherlands has moved from fifth to third position for best startup ecosystems in Europe as shown in the Global Startup Ecosystem Report 2020 by Startup Genome. The Amsterdam-Delta takes a higher position each year and is now in 12th position in the global ranking. Startup Genome finds the Agtech, Food & Life Sciences performance … Continue reading The Netherlands in Top 3 Best Startup Ecosystems in Europe
On 24 June we celebrated the graduation of nine startups of the StartLife Accelerate Spring 2020 cohort. On behalf of StartLife and the nine graduated startups we thank all 200+ participants for joining our first global and virtual graduation day. We are happy to share some Graduation Day highlights with you. Video Compilation View our … Continue reading Highlights Graduation Day of StartLife Accelerate Spring 2020
Brief updates from StartLife Alumni and Community members. Ellipsis closes deal with the city of Rotterdam In the context of our energy transition, the city of Rotterdam wants to continuously map how many solar panels are installed in their city. Ellipsis has been selected to detect all solar panels in Rotterdam using remote sensing and … Continue reading StartLife Alumni Updates – July 2020
For the second year in a row Lidl and StartLife co-organize the Lidl Future Goods Week. From July 9th you will find six sustainable food products from promising startups in all Lidl stores in the Netherlands. With this initiative Lidl provides food startups the opportunity to get their first retail experience, whilst Lidl works on … Continue reading Lidl Provides Shelf Space To StartLife Startups During Future Goods Week
This week we held a virtual Innovation Day for and with one of StartLife’s newest corporate partners, Limagrain. Limagrain, one of the largest seed companies worldwide, actively explored their partnership opportunities with the StartLife community on Wageningen Campus. And when we say active, we mean active! Devoted to innovation We were impressed with Limagrain’s truly … Continue reading Limagrain Explores Partnership Opportunities At Wageningen Campus
With great pleasure we invite you to the graduation of nine ambitious Food- & AgTech startups of the StartLife Accelerate Spring 2020 Cohort, which takes place online on Wednesday, June 24th 2020 from 15.30 to 18.00 (Central European Summer Time). For the first time we open the doors to our graduation day to the global F&A community. … Continue reading Virtual Graduation Day of StartLife Spring 2020 Cohort
Brief updates from StartLife Alumni and Community members. 3 million euros for Cerescon’s asparagus harvesting robot StartLife alumnus since 2015 Cerescon, the developer of the very first selective asparagus harvesting robot, Sparter, seems to benefit from the impact of the coronavirus. Many growers of asparagus, the ‘white gold’, are currently confronted with a 30% shortfall … Continue reading StartLife Alumni Updates – May 2020
When the team behind Epinutra first started its research, it was looking for solutions to strengthen the connections between cells in the body. Ten years later, it has developed a natural food supplement that could provide a new way to tackle heartburn – even in vulnerable groups like pregnant women. Epinutra’s CEO and founder Richard … Continue reading Founder Story: Epinutra Targets A Natural Solution To Heartburn
Rabobank and StartLife announced today that they have extended their strategic partnership aimed at supporting impactful food and agtech startups for another three years. Both parties feel it is vital to ensure innovative and sustainable solutions that help secure the future of our global food supply get the best chances to succeed. Now more than … Continue reading Rabobank And StartLife Extend Strategic Partnership To Drive Food & AgTech Innovation
Today, 23 April 2020, Royal Cosun and StartLife announce a strategic partnership aimed to actively connect innovative agtech startups with Cosun. Cosun’s ambition is to be a leader in plant based innovations. To increase their innovative strength and development speed they seek out for close collaborations with innovative startups. Cosun has set out the ambition … Continue reading Royal Cosun Opens Doors For Innovative Agtech Startups With StartLife
Healthy eating should be easy for everyone – including those with chronic medical conditions and specific dietary needs, according to the founder and CEO of personalized nutrition platform Verdify. Launched in November 2019, Verdify is an artificial intelligence platform that links food retailers’ recipe databases with consumers who have special dietary requirements. Users can choose … Continue reading Founder Story of Verdify: Better Health Through AI And Personalized Nutrition
Brief updates from StartLife Alumni and Community members NGS Secures Convertible Loan Of 250k euro From LIOF alumnus of StartLife’s Fall 2019 cohort Next Generations Sensors (NGS) receives €250,000 from the Limburg Business Development Fund (LBDF) of LIOF, the regional development company of the Dutch Province of Limburg. NGS will use the funding to deliver … Continue reading StartLife Alumni Updates – April 2020
In May 2017 Klasmann-Deilmann entered into a strategic partnership with StartLife. The partnership was aimed at boosting their innovation development program and gaining access to innovative startups in commercial horticulture. As the collaboration exceeded their expectations by far, the market leader in professional horticulture substrates decided to extend their corporate partnership for another three years. … Continue reading Klasmann-Deilmann Extends Corporate Partnership with StartLife
StartLife proudly announces to have been accepted as Network Partner in EIT Food, a pan-European consortium that focuses on entrepreneurship and innovation in the food sector. Its members are world-class players in the international food and agricultural domain. Being a member of EIT Food enables StartLife to connect with new startups and partners as well … Continue reading StartLife Becomes Partner Of EIT Food
Wageningen University & Research joined Foodshot Global, an international capital investment network of funding bodies, banks, businesses and knowledge institutions that provides credit to startups and other new businesses in the field of innovative food systems. Foodshot Global also organizes competitions whereby it hands out cash prizes to nominated individuals with a proven track record. … Continue reading Wageningen University & Research Joins International Foodshot Global Network
For the fifth year in a row StartLife is one of the leading organizers of the international agrifood event F&A Next. Together with Foodbytes! by Rabobank eight most promising startups have been selected as this years’ ‘Next Heroes in Food- & AgTech’. On May 13, they will pitch their innovations during a (free) live webinar … Continue reading F&A Next Presents ‘Eight Next Heroes In Food- & AgTech 2020’
The Dutch government has mobilized a first 100 million euro to grant soft-loans to startups, scale-ups and innovative SMEs in the Netherlands that suffer deeply from the Corona crisis. Companies can apply for a bridging loan up to two million euros. can The loans will be provided via regional development companies in The Netherlands. The … Continue reading 100 Million Euro Bridge Financing for Dutch Startups
This month EP&C, a patent attorney agency, extends their partnership agreement with StartLife. StartLife helps early stage technology startups to validate their business, find investors and achieve their growth ambitions. Patent protection is crucial at this early stage, so EP&C help the young entrepreneurs with this. In recent years, the company has assisted them with … Continue reading 4 Reasons For Talking To A Patent Attorney At An Early Stage
In March StartLife partner Shift Invest launched their third fund for impactful early-stage startups: SHIFT III. It is expected that the fund will manage EUR 65 million by the end of the year, which makes it the largest impact investment fund in the Netherlands. Wageningen & University & Research and Rabobank, two other StartLife partners, … Continue reading Dutch Largest Impact Investment Fund for Early Startups Is Launched
The agrifood industry is actively searching for sustainable food alternatives, like plant-based dairy, land-based salmon and, oh yes, bugs! The industry is also concerned with a more sustainable use of resources, striving to minimize water usage and crop spoilage and optimizing the circularity of materials. How can corporates ensure trust, quality and fair ownership in … Continue reading 9 New Agrifood Startups Prepare To Tackle Global Challenges
Satellites constantly monitor every part of our planet’s surface, but until now, only the most technically-minded have been able to access the relevant data. Ellipsis Drive wants to change that, bringing automated analysis of satellite imagery to the mainstream. Founded in April 2018, Ellipsis Drive has developed a self-teaching system that gives a clear picture of … Continue reading Founder Story of Ellipsis: Using Satellite Data and AI To Build A Better World