- Millow has raised €2 million from experienced Swedish tech investors and Jan Enhager, who co-founded NOCCO.
- Millow’s main patent recently passed the EU opposition period without any objections.
- Millow’s carbon footprint is 98% lower than beef, in a sector where a major competitor went bankrupt in 2024.
Two co-founders of Swedish tech companies, whose combined exits total €1.7 billion, have invested in a company that makes protein from oats and fungi.
Millow, a food-technology company based in Gothenburg, has closed a €2 million funding round to expand production and build a commercial team for the Nordic foodservice market. The company previously received grants from the European Innovation Council Accelerator and now has about 14 employees, according to PitchBook.
Magnus Emilson, a serial entrepreneur and angel investor, led the round. He first invested in Millow in 2025 and has now increased his stake. Emilson co-founded the internet consultancy Mind in 1996, was an early investor in TradeDoubler and NA-KD, and founded Visit Group and ESS Group, which run about 14 hotels and resorts in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark.
Jan Enhager, who co-founded Vitamin Well, the company behind NOCCO and Barebells, joined the round as both an investor and a formal strategic adviser to Öhrn. Vitamin Well brings in about €650 million in annual revenue.
Two unnamed co-founders of Swedish tech companies with combined exits exceeding €1.7 billion also invested, alongside private investors from the Swedish food sector.
Millow’s operations and why its patent matters
Millow was founded in 2020, building on over 25 years of fermentation research by Prof. Mohammad J. Taherzadeh. In March 2026, the company named Fredrik Öhrn as its CEO. That same month, Taherzadeh left his role at the University of Borås to join Millow full-time as chief scientific officer.
Millow’s patented solid-state fermentation process turns Swedish oats and mycelium into protein using just two ingredients, with no binders or additives. The process uses only three to four litres of water per kilogram of product.
RISE has independently confirmed its carbon footprint at 0.32 kg CO₂e per kilogram, about 98% lower than that of Swedish beef. Foodservice operators can reduce a dish’s footprint by swapping beef mince for Millow’s product, without changing recipes or adding ingredients.
Alongside the funding round, the European Patent Office confirmed that the nine-month opposition period for Millow’s main patent, EP 4 307 913, ended with no objections. This patent covers the low-water production method at the heart of Millow’s process, and its unchallenged status removes a key risk for investors looking at fermentation startups.
Millow is backed by the EU’s EIC Accelerator and is talking with foodservice operators and distributors across the Nordics, with growing interest from abroad.
Millow is not the first Gothenburg-based company to scale fungi as a meat alternative
Mycorena, also from Gothenburg, raised a record Nordic Series A of €24 million in 2022, bringing its total funding to over €35 million. After failing to secure Series B funding, Mycorena paused its large-scale factory project and filed for bankruptcy in July 2024. Belgian biomass fermenter Naplasol acquired its assets shortly after.
Scotland’s Enough, formerly 3F Bio, has pursued a more capital-intensive strategy, raising over €95 million and supplying mycoprotein to Unilever and Marks & Spencer. Established brand Quorn continues to hold unmatched retail distribution.
Unlike Mycorena and Enough, which required large investments in big factories, Millow’s dry-state fermentation process uses less water and can reach foodservice scale faster without large facilities. The grain-based mycelium meat alternatives market was worth $18 million in 2025 and is expected to grow to $285 million by 2036, at a 25.2% annual growth rate, according to Future Market Insights.
Investor interest in food and climate ventures is still strong, even after Mycorena’s collapse. Nordic Foodtech VC recently closed a €40 million fund to support food-science startups in the Nordic and Baltic regions. Berlin’s FoodLabs also raised a €105 million third fund this year for agriculture, food security, and health startups. However, investors now want to see a proven process and a clear commercial pipeline, not just promising lab results.
Mycorena’s collapse showed that the main challenge for mycoprotein was not the science, but the finances, especially scaling from pilot to full production. Millow now has an unopposed patent, enough capital for foodservice expansion, and investors with experience in scaling companies.
Whether €2 million and a small commercial team will be enough to avoid the capital spending barrier that ended its predecessor’s independence will become clear in the next funding round.
