Asian insect company, Nutrition Technologies, completed an equity venture round led by PTT Ventures, supported by Sumitomo Corporation, ING Sustainable Investments, and Mandala Capital and by existing investors, such as Openspace Ventures, SEEDs Capital, and Hera Capital. The round was advised by ING Corporate Finance.
Through seven years of R&D background, hundreds of tonnes of organic waste every week are transformed in the two hectares-production facility that the company has in Johor, Malaysia. The company’s products have been tested on fish and shrimp, being found beneficial for aquaculture. Through this new fund, the company will expand markets by launching new products and accomplishing new partnerships as a new joint-venture project in a second country in Southeast Asia.
“We are increasing production to meet market demand and provid essential ingredients to the domestic agricultural sector as well as boosting exports through shipping our products to Korea, Japan, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines and Chile. We will also commence shipments to the UK and EU very soon,” said Nick Piggott, co-CEO and co-founder, Nutrition Technologies.
The company also intends to expand its R&D capabilities in Singapore and add several new patents to its existing IP portfolio.
“We look forward to partnering with Nutrition Technologies to support their next growth phase. Commercial insect protein production is one of the most important innovations of the past few years, with the potential to disrupt the animal feed and fertilizer sectors and solve multiple issues the world is currently facing. Furthermore, we expect this partnership will provide customers with innovative solutions to revolutionize the agriculture sector and improve people’s quality of life,” said Buranin Rattanasombat, senior executive vice president, innovation and new ventures at PTT Public Company Limited.
“We believe our technological developments can help address some of the world’s most critical problems and are highly motivated to accelerate expansion as quickly as possible. Our novel microbiology solution to insect production allows us to use a wide pool of raw materials that negates the most significant barrier to scaling”, said Charlie Carter, COO, at Nutrition Technologies.
