With four additional closings this June, as detailed below, Blue Horizon Ventures reports that in less than ten months its portfolio has now expanded to 12 mission-aligned companies and that it has deployed circa EUR 50M to accelerate their growth. Thrive author Brendan Brazier has also been recruited as a partner at the firm.
Mia & Ben
Mia & Ben is a start-up founded by Daniel Auner and Karina Gentgen and is challenging the ambient baby food category by pushing the boundaries of healthy nutrition in kids’ food using science and the introduction of natural and fresh products. Innovation is at the heart of everything Mia & Ben does. The company works with internationally renowned research universities, including the Technische Universität in Berlin, to create new and improved products that offer parents healthier and fresher alternatives.
The Berlin-based start-up recently launched in the UK’s second-biggest supermarket, Sainsbury’s, with three different flavours. They also retail online at Ocado and Abel & Cole in the UK and in Dunnes supermarkets in Ireland. They plan to use this investment round to enable them to expand into new markets and to expand their offering. Therefore Blue Horizon Ventures invests EUR 2.5M in this series A round and Michael Kleindl joins the Board.
Cubiq Foods is a Spain based food-tech company which has developed two main business segments. One is a proprietary fat structuring technology to produce novel, sunflower-based fats for the food processing industry. The other is a unique acellular agriculture approach that enables the sustainable synthesis of cultivated fat and health-promoting, polyunsaturated fatty acids such as Omega3.
By using Cubiq’s healthy smart fat solutions instead of fat from animal origin, the quality of breads or biscuits can be improved. Additionally, it allows a reduction in the consumption of low-quality meat, replacing it with flavourful foods derived from non-animal sources. Andrés Montefeltro, Dr. Raquel Revilla and Jordi Bladé, three outstanding founders, have successfully raised EUR 10M in this Series A round, where Blue Horizon Ventures participates by investing EUR 5M. Dr. Regina Hecker and Michael Kleindl are joining the board.
Heartbest
Heartbest is a Mexico based company developing, manufacturing and commercializing plant-based cheese and milk in its own state of the art facility located in San Luis Potosí. Founded by father & son, Aniceto and Aldo Gonzalez, Heartbest was born out of personal transformation by employing a revolutionary and unique approach towards product development. Heartbest has been able to achieve products that deliver the same satisfying taste, texture and functionality as animal-based diary. They have pioneered products like pea & amaranth milk and Vegicheeze. Highly impressed by their team, innovation and products, Blue Horizon Ventures leads the Series A round by investing USD 2M.
Biomilq: Biomilq is a North Carolina based company leveraging their patent-pending technology to produce nutritionally equivalent breastmilk from cultured human mammary cells. Two outstanding founders, Michelle Egger, CEO with long working experience in the dairy industry and Leila Strickland, CSO with a Ph.D. in cell biology and years of experience in conducting original research on fundamental cellular processes, founded the company in 2020 with their vision to disrupt the global infant formula market. So far this market size is estimated to be USD 24B in 2018 and is projected to reach USD 45B in 2025.
BRENDAN BRAZIER JOINS AS VENTURE PARTNER
Blue Horizon Ventures welcomes Brendan Brazier as Venture Partner to the team as of July 1, 2020. Brendan is the co-founder of Vega, Pulp Culture, and Fire Road, bestselling author of the Thrive book series, Editor-in-Chief of alive magazine, and an Executive Producer of The Game Changers film. He’s also a former professional Ironman triathlete and a two-time Canadian 50km Ultra Marathon Champion. Brendan is regarded as one of the world’s leading authorities on plant-based performance nutrition, and now invests in and works with socially responsible food & tech companies whose mandate is to fix our food system and reduce the environmental strain of food production.