The climate VC World Fund is leading the financing round. Omnes Capital, Cherry Ventures, Mudcake, Nucleus Capital, and TriplePoint Capital also participated. Planet A Foods intends to use the fresh capital to accelerate Choviva's international expansion and their procedure to include other plant-based ingredients. Part of the funds have already been used to expand production at the plant in Pilsen, Czech Republic.
Sara Marquardt, Co-Founder and CTO of Planet A Foods, says:
"The Series A has accelerated the development of our technology platform and enabled us to hire top-level experts in lipids, chocolate, and synbio. We have now scaled up production of our cocoa butter and palm oil alternatives to an industrial level and are poised to launch exciting new products."
Maximilian Marquardt, Co-Founder and CEO of the company, adds:
"This Series A round has already enabled us to produce at scale and continuously supply Choviva to our customers. It brings us closer to building a scalable and competitive biotechnology platform for the food industry."
Planet A Foods has global expansion plans
Also Daria Saharova, Managing Partner at the World Fund, is enthusiastic:
"Since we invested in the company in 2021, we've been proud of their fantastic development. Within three years, they've transformed a proof of concept into an industrial-grade product on store shelves and secured partnerships with global giants. The fact that this Series A funding round was oversubscribed despite a general decline in food technology investments is a testament to their success. We're delighted to have led this round for Planet A Foods and can't wait to support the team in executing their ambitious global expansion plans in 2024 and beyond."
Planet A Foods has already launched several products with Rewe and is planning further partnerships with retailers. In addition, the startup with companies such as Griesson – de Beukelaer, Peter Kölln, Spitz, Hans Freitag, and Lufthansa. Lindt recently launched a vegan chocolate product containing Choviva.
