Archives: Cases

Case Description

Apeel

Apeel

Plant-based protection,
longer-lasting produce

Apeel works with nature to reduce food waste and create abundance for all.

Entrepreneurs
James Rogers

Founded
2012

Partnered
2020

HQ
Goleta, California, USA

Category
Connecting the Value Chain

Food Gone Good

Food waste typifies the paradoxes of our global food system, where an estimated 40% of the food grown globally is never consumed, due to supply chain inefficiencies and consumer waste, while nearly 30% of the world’s population remains malnourished and food insecure (Source: FAO). Food loss between harvest and consumption also exacerbates the climate crisis, through wasted inputs (land, water, energy, fertilizers, pesticides), energy spent fueling a supply chain that fails to deliver nutrition, and greenhouse gases emitted from wasted food itself. Apeel was established to address these issues using plant-based solutions.

Apeel developed and produces plant-based coatings for fresh produce that act as a “second peel” to minimize water and gas transfer. This technology allows produce to preserve its freshness and nutrition, fight spoilage, maintain taste and texture, and extend shelf life by two times or more that of untreated produce. These coatings are applied via Apeel’s machinery, which integrates into the supply chain. The produce is also branded with Apeel’s logo, to indicate to consumers that the fruits and vegetables they buy are fresher and longer lasting.


Apeel’s technology brings system-wide impact. As Apeel’s product is integrated across the food system, fewer resources are wasted producing uneaten food, less plastic is required for food packaging, less fuel is expended in rapid shipping, less energy is wasted on in-store refrigeration, fewer GHGs are emitted from wasted food in landfills, and more people of all income levels have access to fresh fruit and vegetables in all parts of the world.

Apeel news

Aphea.Bio

Aphea.Bio

Applied Nature for a Better Agriculture

Aphea.Bio develops microorganism-based biopesticides and biostimulants.

Entrepreneurs
Isabel Vercauteren, Steven Vandenabeele

Founded
2017

Partnered
2020

HQ
Ghent, Belgium

Category
Accelerating Regenerative Agriculture

Next-Generation Agro-Biologicals for a Sustainable Future

Aphea.Bio develops new and superior agricultural biologicals. By focusing on microbial strains that improve plant nutrient uptake (biostimulants) and strains that protect against disease (biocontrol), Aphea.Bio provides farmers with innovative and sustainable solutions to reduce fertilizer and pesticide use.

Unravelling complex interactions and identifying beneficial microbial strains amongst the millions of microorganisms present in and around the plant requires solid scientific insights. To this end, Aphea.Bio has developed an innovative R&D platform bundling different technologies in bio-informatics and microbiome mapping, state-of-the-art microorganism culturing, high-throughput crop phenotyping and data analysis.

The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that pesticides are responsible for up to 5 million cases of poisoning each year, of which 20,000 are lethal. By providing biologicals, which can complement or substitute agricultural chemical products, Aphea.Bio leads the way to an urgently needed, more sustainable agriculture.

Isabel Vercauteren
CEO and Co-Founder

“

Astanor Ventures was the perfect lead investor in our Series B funding round. We both share the same ambition of making an impact on modern agriculture and moving towards a healthier and more sustainable food system.

Calyxia

Calyxia

Going beyond chemistry to build a green and advanced world

Introducing the world’s 1st sustainable and high-performance microencapsulation technology

Entrepreneurs
Jamie Walters

Founded
2015

Partnered
2021

HQ
Paris, France

Category
Accelerating Regenerative Agriculture

Leveraging the power of green chemistry to end global microplastic pollution

Calyxia has developed, through 25 years of fundamental research in colloid science, a unique technology to produce the world’s first readily biodegradable and advanced performance microcapsules, to directly combat global microplastic pollution.
Through decades of pollution, there are now over 200 million tonnes of microplastics in our oceans and rivers. Microplastics are found in over 210 commercially important species of fish, in over 90% of all tap and bottled water worldwide.

Today, microplastics are intentionally added to agriculture products to enhance crop yield, and to everyday products such as laundry detergents and shampoos, to provide long-lasting fragrance sensations. In addition, microplastics are generated by the deterioration of plastic materials used in automotive, electronics and sporting goods.
In agriculture and everyday products, Calyxia microcapsules offers a biodegradable and resource efficient solution to replace and eliminate intentionally added microplastics. In advanced materials, Calyxia microcapsules provide a game-changing solution for manufacturers to create lighter, stronger and more durable materials. They prevent plastic materials from breaking down, by increasing the wear resistance and prolonging the product lifespan in-use by over 10 times.
Calyxia partners with world-leading manufacturers in agriculture, home care and advanced materials to take on the war on microplastics and build a green and advanced future for all.

Jamie Walters
CEO & Founder, Calyxia

“

Astanor is world-renowned firm, with an unparalleled network and expertise in high-impact green innovations. Partnering with Astanor is accelerating our international expansion and global product deployment. Together, we will play a pivotal role on the war against microplastic pollution.

Calyxia News

Cervest

Cervest

Climate risk, managed

Cervest helps stakeholders along the value chain make informed, intelligent decisions for resilience on a changing planet.

Entrepreneurs
Iggy Bassi

Founded
2015

Partnered
2019

HQ
London, UK

Category
Accelerating Regenerative Agriculture

Decoding climate complexity with asset-level climate intelligence

Cervest is building an AI climate intelligence platform to empower humans to make informed climate decisions by automatically quantifying and standardizing asset-level climate risk for any physical asset on Earth, across any timescale and scenario.
Climate uncertainty is reducing the security of all physical assets, costing us billions today and forecast to cost trillions in the future. Yet today, decision-makers still rely on generalized, complex and fragmented data to understand the climatic impact on their assets.

Cervest believes that everyone deserves Climate Security – its open platform provides everyone with a shared view of reality, equipping enterprises, governments and communities with an early, independent and Science-backed intelligence that can be integrated into billions of critical decisions, including disclosure (incl. TCFD), asset planning, investments, and near- and long-term strategies, reducing climate uncertainty and driving better outcomes for both organisations and our planet.

Underpinned by a Bayesian statistical framework, its proprietary Earth Science AI continuously ingests and harmonizes otherwise siloed datasets and multiple climate sciences, leveraging probabilistic machine learning algorithms to learn across billions of data points to generate a unified and quantified view of historic, forecast and simulated risks on assets, portfolios and supply chains and uncover traditionally uncorrelated insights.

Iggy Bassi
CEO

“

The Astanor team uniquely fuses a deep understanding of data applications, statistical applications and how to build global companies – and their track record in Silicon Valley and Europe is compelling.

Cervest news

DEMI

DEMI

Where You Build Your Food Community

A global community where people passionate about food can connect, inspire and learn from each other

Entrepreneurs
Ian Moore, Lisa Grimm

Founded
2020

Partnered
2020

HQ
Copenhagen, Denmark

Category
Connecting the Value Chain

Changing the way people connect through food

While food culture is huge online, it is not representative of food as we see and experience it in our daily lives. Food online is way more of a show than a dinner party. Demi is on a mission to change that, building the tools for culinary entrepreneurs to easily connect their food people, get them talking and ultimately create thriving communities.
Demi’s platform is giving chefs and customers a way to connect and build community, transforming social media into a deeply meaningful and mutually beneficial experience. The platform provides chefs with the simple tools to share content, foster dialog, build direct connections with their fans and earn revenue. Consumers get the chance to engage with their favorite chefs and one another, receive exclusive content, share their own stories and creations and explore new ideas in a positive environment.

Lisa Grimm
Co-Founder

Demi is tapping into the transition of the broader restaurant industry, which is moving to a much more direct, fluid interaction between chefs and consumers.
Through connecting consumers with professional chefs and advocating for the importance of fresh, high-quality ingredients, Demi makes cooking fresh, healthy meals available and easy. The platform helps build additional revenue streams for small businesses through direct connections made between chefs and consumers.
Demi creates a space where excited, curious people can come together, commerce more interesting and more sustainable for all parties involved. This approach allows for more voices to be heard, more knowledge and inspiration to be shared, and an actual social experience to be realized.

Ian Moore
Co-Founder

“

It’s exciting to work with forward-thinking people who genuinely appreciate and champion food’s ability to create and nourish community. Astanor thinks deeply about these things and is a perfect partner for us.

DEMI news

garten

garten

Wellbeing at work, wherever you are

Garten provides fresh, nutritious food to workers at the office and at home.

Entrepreneurs
Michael Heinrich

Founded
2014

Partnered
2019

HQ
Burlingame, California, USA

Category
Connecting the Value Chain

Empowering people to lead healthy, productive lives

Research has proven that health and productivity go hand in hand, and the more healthful foods people consume during the day, the happier, more engaged and creative they become. Despite this, much of the food consumed in offices is unhealthy and highly processed. With up to 50% of meals being consumed at work, employees struggle to meet their health goals while employers suffer from decreased productivity. garten was founded to address these issues and to empower people to live healthy and blissful lives, no matter where they work.
garten is a workplace kitchen concierge serving nutritious snacks and meals through an innovative wellness platform that supports employees working in the office or at home. The company is redefining the enterprise food services sector by bringing wellness to the workplace and by educating the workforce around the benefits of good nutrition. garten incorporates AI and IoT technology to enhance supply chain management and improve personalized nutrition in the workplace. With its careful sourcing practices, garten also creates significant demand and revenue for organic and regenerative food producers in the areas where it operates. Beyond its diversity of food offerings, garten offers wellness services, such as yoga and meditation, to further improve employee health and happiness.

garten provides workplaces food that is 100% traceable, sourced locally within a radius of no more than 80 miles, and majority organic (>95%). The menu always includes vegetarian options, and 5% of leftover food is donated to cut down on waste.
By partnering with workplaces, garten can improve the diets of many people at once: individual users get access to personalized data, advice and food that meet their individual goals and health needs, while employers get access to a scalable, integrated platform that improves employee retention, morale and productivity. Research has shown that employees who eat healthily at work outperformed their less healthy peers by 25% (Source: British Journal of Heath Psychology).

Michael Heinrich
CEO

“

I feel incredibly fortune to have the entire Astanor team as a partner. Their incredible care and congruence in values and foresight during board meetings makes me feel at ease and deeply supported.

garten news

The Gut Stuff

The Gut Stuff

Empowering gut health in every body

The Gut Stuff aims to ensure that everyone has access to the food and knowledge to support their gut health.

Entrepreneurs
Lisa Macfarlane, Alana Macfarlane Kempner

Founded
2017

Partnered
2019

HQ
London, UK

Category
Innovating Agrifood Transformation Processes

Let’s gut serious

Rapidly growing interest in the gut and gut microbiome health reflects the increasing challenges society faces from chronic diseases, such as diabetes, obesity, depression and anxiety. Research increasingly demonstrates the deep link between gut and gut microbiome health and physical and mental health outcomes. One of the simplest ways to improve gut health is through increased regular fiber consumption to meet the recommended 30g of fibre per day (Source: the Lancet). However, many people struggle to reach their daily fiber recommendation. Fewer than 1 in 10 people in the UK eats the recommended amount of daily fiber (Source: WHO). The Gut Stuff aims to ensure that everyone has access to the food and knowledge to support their gut health – at price points that are accessible to all.

The Gut Stuff has made it its mission to educate people of all ages and backgrounds about the importance of a healthy gut and gut microbiome. The company complements its educational website and trainings with accessible, nutritious products that consumers can easily incorporate into their daily routines. Beginning with a fiber bar, The Gut Stuff is building a suite of gut-loving products. With the help of their scientific advisors, the team will continue to support their community in understanding and accessing products and practices to support their guts.
The Gut Stuff’s foundation in cutting-edge gut microbiome science and focus on universal access to gut health is consistent with Astanor’s belief that food is the best medicine and that all people have a right to the foods that will enable their health.

Lisa Macfarlane and Alana Macfalane Kempner
Co-CEOs

“

Astanor is supportive but not intrusive, and the team is always there when we need them. As young founders, we need all the experience around us, and Astanor give us that in spaces.

The Gut Stuff news

Hyris DNA

Hyris DNA

Food identity uncovered, one test at a time

The Hyris platform offers the disruptive capability to perform genetic analysis of biological samples in any kind of setting.

Entrepreneurs
Stefano Lo Priore

Founded
2014

Partnered
2019

HQ
Milan, Italy

Category
Connecting the Value Chain


From olive oil to viruses, Hyris is providing safety and reassurance

With as much as 10% of all foods we consume tainted by adulteration, food scandals are on the rise all over the world (Source: Federation of American Scientists). As more and more leading food companies suffer supply chain disruption and reputational damage, so too has their leadership become laser-focused on quality assurance and supply chain transparency.

Hyris offers distributed genetic testing that’s more convenient and scalable than existing options. Hyris aims to create global impact by providing the industries it serves, the first at-scale library of food safety data. It does this through its distributed network of bKITS (bespoke sets of reagents for specific DNA sequences) and bCUBES (a miniaturized portable device).

Hyris has focused its application on the nutrition sector, while also working with adjacent and complementary fields, such as pharmaceuticals, virology and epidemiology. In recent months, Hyris has been granted major regulatory authorizations for COVID-19 testing, including a ground breaking approval for point of care diagnostics by Health Canada.

Hyris DNA news

Infarm

Infarm

Growing an ultra-fresh food system in your city

A pioneer in on-demand vertical farming, Infarm helps cities become self-sufficient in their food production and democratises access to local healthy fresh produce while eliminating waste and reducing environmental impact.

Entrepreneurs
Erez Galonska, Guy Galonska, Osnat Michaeli

Founded
2013

Partnered
2018

HQ
Berlin, Germany

Category
Innovating Agrifood Transformation Processes

Making every city a nourished city

Western society routinely purchases food that often has grown thousands of kilometers away from where it’s consumed. The cost of that supply chain is high CO2 emissions, less nutritious food, substantial waste of water and food and atrophy to soil and land through chemical use. In the case of leafy greens, they lose their key nutrients in less than 7 days of harvest.
Founded in Berlin in 2013, Infarm is pioneering on-demand farming services to help cities become self-sufficient in their food production while eliminating waste and reducing environmental impact. Infarm’s grow-on-site farming system enables the production of locally fresh and nutritious plants all-year round. The resulting produce comes from organic non-GMO seeds, is free of pesticides and has a close to 90% less transportation.

Infarm’s technology fundamentally changes the way we grow, distribute and consume food – and the impact food production has on the planet and people. With farms operating across Europe, Canada, the US, Japan and more, Infarm’s solution grows food that uses:
95% less water
75% less fertilizers
No chemical pesticides
99% less land

Osnat Michaeli
Chief Brand Strategy Officer

“

We look for investment partners who share our vision to build a more resilient food system, where locally grown, premium quality produce is accessible and affordable to all. Astanor is exactly this.

Infarm news

iUNU

iUNU

Powering the 21st century greenhouse

Precision agriculture specialists for precision growing

Entrepreneurs
Adam Greenberg, Rooney Kyle, Conrad Travis & Erez Younker

Founded
2013

Partnered
2021

HQ
Seattle, USA

Category
Accelerating Regenerative Agriculture

Leveraging the power of artificial intelligence and computer vision to optimize indoor farming

iUNU (“you knew”) helps growers apply computer vision, artificial intelligence and machine learning in their greenhouses to optimize operations.

With the greenhouse industry growing at a rate of 20% per year, owners are scrambling to find solutions to manage and maintain their growing operations effectively. Today, most growers still make decisions based on manual sampling and hand-collected crop and labor data. Additionally, the shortage of labor in the US and Europe has compounded the issue. iUNUs solution turns growing operations into data-driven manufacturing facilities by identifying problems before they occur to reduce loss, project yields remotely and improve workflow.

No clip boards, no more walking up and down endless aisles, just a digital binder that keeps tabs on every facet of the organization at the touch of a screen.

iUNU develops AI applications that not only optimize crop yield to increase growers’ margins, they also allow growers to work proactively instead of reactively in solving plant issues to improve crop health and redirect how they use their resources to minimize waste significantly. Their flagship product, LUNA, is a mix of hardware and software for growers.

iUNU acquired Astanor portfolio company Artemis in 2021. Artemis provides software solutions to growers to improve traceability and labor productivity. The combination of Artemis and iUNU gives growers a one stop shop for technologies to manage the greenhouse.

iUNU news