Entocycle secures $5m Series A to license tech solutions for insect farms worldwide
31 Jan 2023
LONDON, UK, 31 JANUARY 2023 – The UK’s leading insect technology company Entocycle has announced a $5 million Series A investment in a funding round led by Climentum Capital, a Climate-Tech Venture Capital firm based out of Copenhagen, Berlin and Stockholm.
The new funding confirms Entocycle as a leading global player in the rapidly-growing insect industry as it looks to place its cutting-edge technology at the heart of large-scale insect farms worldwide.
The company will use the investment to roll out a suite of products and services to serve established insect companies and new entrants into the insect industry globally. Entocycle will expand the team from its current headcount of 21 as it seeks to commercialise operations and make its products and services more accessible to the market.
Alongside Climentum Capital, the Series A funding includes investment from Lowercarbon Capital, Teampact Ventures, ACE & Company and prominent world-class athletes such as Antoine Dupont (World Rugby player of the year in 2021), Nikola Karabatic (three-times Olympic gold winner in handball), James Haskell (former England rugby international) and Antoine Brizard (Volleyball Olympic Champion with France in 2021).
Entocycle’s flagship product, the Entosight™ Neo, is a software and hardware package based upon an optical sensor that monitors and collects data on the health and productivity of a black soldier fly colony. The Entosight™ Neo reduces the need for manual human processes such as weighing larvae, multi-step handling and inaccurate counting to result in higher-feed conversion rates, lower mortality and larger insects on farms.
The company has also developed a turn-key modular fly cage, a highly efficient breeding system and offers a full BSF farm design, commission and build service to new entrants to the insect industry, with growing interest from large-scale food producers looking to secure protein-supply or waste management companies looking to upcycle organic waste into higher-value products such as protein or lipids.
The investment is a boost for the climate and natural world as the growth of alternative proteins, such as insects, is considered to be a key driver to reducing environmental issues, including deforestation linked to soy, overfishing and pollution related to agricultural waste disposal into our rivers and seas as well as improving food security. According to a recent study by WWF, the UK could replace 20% of its soy imports with insect protein by 2050.
The global insect protein market is showing no signs of slowing down, with demand for insect protein forecast to reach 3 million tonnes and be worth $9.46bn by 2030. According to another recent report, the global black soldier fly market specifically is expected to grow 30.5% CAGR from 2022 to reach $3.96b by 2033.
“We’re powering this fast-growing industry globally and helping build a more sustainable and secure future for food and feed”, said Keiran Whitaker, Entocycle’s founder. “We’ve got the technology and the scientific know-how to unlock the production efficiencies to enable the insect market to really take flight. We’re proud to have our investors with us on this journey, and they share our vision for a more sustainable food system that will allow the restoration of nature and the fragile ecosystems we all depend on.”
“We finally have a solution to decentralize and localize production, solve the global feed shortage and accelerate the transition towards low-carbon alternative proteins, all at once”, said Yoann Berno, General Partner at Climentum Capital. “We’re proud to lead this round, as there’s no better insect breeding technology on the market. Entocycle has developed a full stack of breeding solutions for small farmers and full-scale waste managers, which would take years and millions of dollars to replicate.”
About Entocycle
Entocycle is a UK technology company that develops and supplies insect farming solutions to accelerate a global transition towards sustainable protein. Founded in 2016 by Keiran Whitaker, Entocycle has built two successful pilot facilities in the UK, and its complete farm design and build solution enables farms, food producers and waste management companies to convert organic waste into high-value insect proteins, fats and fertilisers. Today, Entocycle is the UK’s leading insect technology company and has received notable press coverage from The New York Times, Forbes, The Guardian, BBC and Netflix as a leading voice in a rapidly-growing industry.
About Climentum Capital
Climentum Capital is a Climate Tech Venture Capital Article 9 fund investing in European startups that can cut down megatons of CO2 equivalents in a concrete and measurable way. The fund targets late Seed and Series A investments into the sectors that demonstrate the largest CO2 reduction potential. The fund has a double incentives structure, with carry indexed on both CO2 reduction and financial returns.
About Teampact Ventures
Teampact is an investment company that was created by a team of athletes, investors and entrepreneurs. Teampact has built a toolbox inspired by high-level sports to enable "People First" Tech startups to win in the long term, like the best sports teams in the world, by putting people at the centre of success.
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Media Contact:
Jude Bliss, Marketing Director, Entocycle