Finnish food-tech start-up Solar Foods has received €4.3 million in financing from Business Finland. The company has now raised a total of €24.8 million to-date.
Business Finland is a government-owned organisation that provides funding to boost research and technology development in the country, and the agency co-financed Solar Foods’ piloting phase and the company’s business incubator project along with the European Space Agency.
Solar Foods has developed a carbon-neutral protein called Solein, which is produced from electricity, CO2 and water. The process is based on natural fermentation, and Solar Foods claims that its manufacturing process is completely independent from soil; negative land-use impacts; the weather and climate.
Earlier this year, Solar Foods received €18.5 million in a Series A funding round led by Fazer Group, which invested €15 million in the start-up.
According to the start-up, the funding raised through the Series A round will allow the company to open a new manufacturing facility – which is expected to become operational in 2022 – and enable the commercialisation of new food products based on the Solein ingredient.
Solar Foods CEO and co-founder, Pasi Vainikka, said: “As a company, we have two important tasks ahead of us: finalising the development of Solein to become market-ready and constructing our demonstration factory.
“Ever since the founding of Solar Foods, we have enjoyed fruitful cooperation with Business Finland. We are extremely happy about Business Finland’s follow-on capability during the growth of companies like us.”
Vainikka continued: “Our next target is to finalise funding for the demonstration factory investment. For the demo, we have already covered basic engineering, with also good options for a location that we are about to set in the upcoming weeks.”
© FoodBev Media Ltd 2024
