New Wave Biotech and Nurasa have partnered to publish a new whitepaper exploring how lean startup principles — originally designed for fast-moving software companies — could be used by food tech innovators.
Titled The Lean Startup Meets Food Tech: Does It Work?, the report reinterprets the five Lean Startup principles originally written by entrepreneur and author Eric Ries, outlining how they could apply to food tech and biomanufacturing. The resulting principles are:
- Be strategic on where you buy, build, and partner. Identify your focus and unique advantage, and bring in partners to close the gaps.
- Validate desirability, feasibility, and viability together instead of testing them separately, while juggling the interdependencies between them.
- Align technical progress with real customer demand from day one, don’t wait until you’re scaling to find your market. Use techno-economic analysis to align technical and commercial progress.
- Maximize learning where it matters most. Focus your time and money on testing what’s most critical to building a scalable, sustainable business — and use clear metrics to guide every decision.
- Fail cheaply with scaled-down tests, partnerships, and digital tools.
“Helping teams move faster and smarter”
The paper draws on insights from investors, founders, corporates, and scientists from across the food tech ecosystem, including Givaudan, Tetra Pak, Nucleus Capital, and CJ CheilJedang. It also consults startups such as Liven, MeliBio, and DeNovo. The resulting guidance illustrates how lean principles could be used to navigate technical uncertainty, manage capital constraints, and align innovation efforts with market realities.
“Speed alone doesn’t win in food tech — rapid, structured learning across commercial and technical areas does,” said Zoe Law, CEO and co-founder of New Wave Biotech. “This paper is about helping teams move faster and smarter by focusing on what really matters at each stage of development.”
The publication of the paper comes as many biomanufacturing startups begin moving from lab to real-world production. According to New Wave Biotech and Nurasa, knowing what to test, who to work with, and when to scale could make the difference between moving forward and failing to progress.
“Too often, innovators get stuck – not because the science doesn’t work, but because they don’t have the support to scale, navigate regulatory hurdles, or find market fit,” said Sukhi Wei, Strategic Project Manager at Nurasa. “This whitepaper is a practical guide to overcoming that.”
