planetary is an emerging Geneva-based foodtech offering development and manufacturing services to grow bioprocessing, downstream and formulations capacities globally. The company aims to provide capacity for both microbial precision and mycelial biomass fermentation players by operating a global network of interconnected production sites powered by upscaling specific IP.
The start-up’s technology enables a scaled and cost-efficient production of sustainable, diverse and authentic analogues to animal derived foods and ingredients. Yet, industrial scale bioprocessing capacity remains a bottleneck to the industry and is largely unavailable.
David Brandes, co-founder and CEO of planetary, said : “By building an interconnected fermentation capacity network, we aim to open global and local market access to fermentation partners whilst reducing their operational risk and capital exposure.”
In the race to advance product quality, viability, and mitigate climate impact, fermentation companies dedicated to alternative proteins raised USD 1.7 billion in investments in 2021(GFI).
In this context and thanks to its offering, planetary has raised CHF 7.5 million in a seed funding round led by agrifoodtech investor Astanor Ventures, and followed by XAnge, Blue Horizon, Nucleus Capital, among others.
Alleviating a major production hurdle
A member of the Swiss Food and Nutrition Valley, planetary will use these new funds to enable fermentation players to scale up and mass produce at low cost through the installation of industrial fermentation capacity, and to ultimately operate a global network of automated production plants.
“Fermentation technology is essential to creating the alternative protein products that can meet consumer demand for taste and nutrition. Current fermentation capacity is a major hurdle to the development of these products on a large scale. We are excited to support the development of planetary’s innovative infrastructure technology to address this need,” concludes George Coelho, Co-Founder and Partner at Astanor Ventures.
