In this podcast series, Alex Shandrovsky interviews investors about benchmarks for funding Alt Proteins in 2025 and uncovers the investment playbooks of successful Climate Tech CEOs and Leading VCs.
Podcast Host Alex Shandrovksy is a strategic advisor to numerous global food tech accelerators and companies, including alternative proteins and cellular agriculture leaders. His focus is on investor relations and post-raise scale for agrifood tech companies. This podcast is syndicated through our media partners, Foodtech Weekly and Vegconomist.
Episode 37: Bovotica
In this episode, I talk with Andrew Leech, co-founder and CEO of Bovotica, an Australian startup developing probiotic and prebiotic technologies that reduce methane and improve cattle productivity. Andrew walks us through the journey of closing a $3.4M seed round—highlighting the power of warm intros, the realities of raising over 14 months, and the personal sacrifices it took (including selling his house). We dive into valuation strategy using PitchBook, structuring university spinouts, equity-based advisory deals, and how team credibility can overcome early-stage scientific risk. It’s a raw, insightful look at what it truly takes to fund and lead a deep-tech ag startup.
Key Facts CropMind:
- Goal: To reduce methane emissions from cattle while simultaneously delivering production efficiency.
- Recently closed a $3.4 million seed round led by AgriZeroNZ.
Alex’s Top Findings:
- Founder Sacrifices: Sold His House to Stay Afloat. Andrew quit his day job and funded himself through savings — ultimately selling his home to commit full-time and keep the company alive. “ I made the decision to quit my day job and go in this full-time. You have to have at least one person in the company going full time. If you’re trying to raise a seed round and hold down even a part-time job, it gets very tricky. It got tough towards the end for me. I had to sell and ended up selling my house to keep myself going while we raised the seed round. But look, in the end, that was a risk that was really worth taking for me.”
- IP Deal with University: Exclusive License, Then Assignment. Bovotica initially licensed the IP from QUT with a clause for assignment post-raise — creating a win-win for both university and investors. “ I think one of the reasons our seed round took a bit longer is there was a bit of back and forth between Bovotica and QUT to make sure we had the right structure to get that investment. We’ve got a really good relationship with QUT and our process was we wanted to license the IP initially and then once we’d completed the seed round, get the university to assign that IP into the company. So that de-risked it for the university that if we can’t raise the money, then it’s only an exclusive license. But it also gives something to the investor as well that if we close the seed round, the IP is assigned to Bovotica, and Bovotica actually physically owns all the IP that it needs to put the deal forward. So obviously in these sorts of situations. The university is looking to get a fair deal or what it believes the IP is worth.”
- $9.4M Post-Money Valuation Grounded in PitchBook Comps. Bovotica used PitchBook data to benchmark valuations of comparable methane-reduction startups globally, arriving at a $6M pre-money valuation. “I was lucky enough to have access to a PitchBook subscription, so I did I pulled hundreds of reports out a PitchBook.The first thing the investors ask you, once they’re interested is, okay, what’s the premoney you pull this number out and if you’ve got data behind you from PitchBook to back that up, it makes the conversations go so much more easier ”
Link to Apple Podcast here.
Catch the full podcast series here.
