Farmless, a Dutch startup, which uses fermentation to produce carbon-negative, functional proteins with a complete amino acid profile, has snapped €1.2 million in pre-seed funding. The investment round was led by German investors Revent, Nucleus Capital, and Possible Ventures.
The round saw participation from HackCapital (which backed PoLoPo and Michroma), Sustainable Food Ventures, VOYAGERS Climate-Tech Fund, TET Ventures, and angels Jenny Saft through the Atomico Angel program, Ron Shigeta, Martin Weber, Rick Bernstein, Nadine Geiser, Joy Faucher, Michele Tarawneh, Alexander Hoffmann and Christian Stiebner.
Farmless will use the funds to emerge out of stealth. Also, the Amsterdam-based air protein startup is developing a novel method to turn CO2, hydrogen, and renewable energy into protein.
“We’re excited by the Farmless approach to fermentation. We’re specifically interested in food technologies with high scalability and the potential to rapidly outperform on the cost per kg of protein. Across both of these dimensions Farmless shows great potential and it’s a delight to work with this remarkable team,” said Lauren Lentz from Revent.
“We’re proud to be backed by an amazing group of experienced climate tech investors who share our mission. With our fermentation platform, we aim to dramatically outperform animal agriculture and reliably produce low-cost proteins at a planetary scale. We believe this technology has the potential to end factory farming, rewild our planet and draw down gigatons of carbon,” explained Adnan Oner, the founder and CEO of Farmless.
Renewable electricity into food
Founded by a physicist and serial entrepreneur, Adnan Oner in Amsterdam, Farmless works with the mission to free food production from animals and agricultural land. Its goal is to build a fermentation platform, which can turn renewable electricity into food.
Farmless’ initial products are designed to replace animal proteins, as the majority of agricultural land is currently used to feed animals. The Farmless fermentation platform can potentially create a whole new food repertoire, producing proteins, carbohydrates, beneficial fats, vitamins, and minerals from the bottom up.
The company has the potential to decouple food production from animals and agricultural land. It differs from other fermentation startups as it does not use sugar as a feedstock but a liquid that can be made out of electricity and air.
Its proteins require 500x less land than animal protein, which could reverse agricultural sprawl and rewild the world. Their liquid feedstock can be made anywhere renewable energy is abundant and cheap.
