LIVIN farms secures EUR 6 Million Series A investment to turn food waste into valuable protein

Vienna based startup LIVIN Farms has raised a EUR 6 Million Series A round led by Venture Investor Peter Luerssen. LIVIN Farms is an industrial technology provider in the alternative protein industry. It has developed HIVE PRO, a unique, highly scalable and modular system for fully automated insect processing. HIVE PRO empowers waste management companies and large scale food producers to upcycle organic waste and by-products into valuable proteins, fats and fertilisers.

The HIVE PRO is designed to be implemented at the customer’s site, where organic waste and by-products originate and are used as insect feed. The complete process, from insect rearing to robotic insect handling and end product processing, is fully automated. The HIVE PRO technology is complemented by the LIVIN farm’s unique ‘Farming as a Service’ (FaaS) model, whereby HIVE PROs are remotely monitored and automatically replenished with insect seedlings once a life cycle process is completed.

Customers can think of HIVE PRO as an independent plug-and-play factory, within their factory, which is as easy to use as it gets. In Vienna, Austria, LIVIN farms has recently opened a fully up-and-running 1,400 square metre pilot site where the HIVE PRO is demonstrated to interested customers.

“With our proprietary technology and biological know-how, our customers turn substantial losses on organic waste into highly attractive, additional income. At the same time, our customers contribute massively to fixing the broken food system and therefore saving the planet”, says Katharina Unger, Founder and CEO of LIVIN farms.The LIVIN farms insect factories are an important step towards a circular economy, where technology enables resource efficient and truly scalable production processes’, adds Markus Krischmann, Managing Director of Seed Investor Elevation Investments.

LIVIN Farms has previously secured a Seed investment round, grants and subsidies from Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG), Austrian Promotional Bank (AWS) and the European Innovation Council (EIC) under the European “Green Deal” totaling more than EUR 4 Million alltogether. This Series A investment of EUR 6 Million fuels further growth of the company and will be used for expanding the LIVIN farms team, standardisation of the technical solutions and driving the initial scale-up phase.

“LIVIN farms is on a mission to revolutionise the up-cycling of organic waste through their modular and automated insect factories and they are poised to become a major player in this fast growing industry”, says Peter Luerssen, Series A lead investor.

“Taking previously discarded waste and turning it into high value protein not only opens up new revenue streams for customers, but is a huge win for planetary health”, adds
Duncan Turner, General Partner of SOSV’s HAX.

Around 2 billion more people will populate the planet by 2050 and global demand for protein will exceed production capabilities by far. Insect proteins, taking substantially less space and resources, are a major element of the solution. LIVIN farms not only contributes to fixing the broken food system and generates new revenue streams for its customers but overall massively cuts carbon emissions associated with the protein production process. A true win-win-win situation for LIVIN farms, its customers, and the planet.

Around 2 billion more people will populate the planet by 2050 and global demand for protein will exceed production capabilities by far. Insect proteins, taking substantially less space and resources, are a major element of the solution. LIVIN farms not only contributes to fixing the broken food system and generates new revenue streams for its customers but overall massively cuts carbon emissions associated with the protein production process. A true win-win-win situation for LIVIN farms, its customers, and the planet.

About Livin Farms

Intro

Livin Farms is a company offering 360° services and technology to turn organic wastes into insect ingredients. It has its headquarters in Vienna, Austria.

About the Technology

Livin Farms Hive PRO Factory is a modular, plug-and-play insect farming factory that can turn industrial amounts of organic waste by-products into insect proteins. Those can in turn be processed and sold as animal feed. “We are using insects´ key function in the ecosystem to make our food system healthy again at scale: Turning waste into precious food!” (Katharina Unger, CEO). Setting up an insect farming operation is a lengthy and expensive procedure that requires a lot of time and R&D. With our technology, industry customers make a shortcut. Our Hive PRO factories are ready-to-go industrial insect farming modules. They serve as key enabling technologies for the food, feed, and recycling industries to turn their low-value resources into high-quality ingredients for commercialization.” 

About the Founder

It all started when founder Katharina left her small home town on the border between Austria and Hungary to venture into the world as an industrial designer. She ended up in Hong Kong where she realised that most of the food there was imported and almost no one knew where it came from. That’s why she started to investigate the current food system and looked into alternatives. Insects have the great potential of growing on food waste, taking much less space and very little water and energy to grow, while they emit almost no CO2. She developed many prototypes for the ideal and smart breeding of insects on the smallest footprint possible.

The Livin Farms Team

Katharina Unger: Founder, CEO Industrial Designer

Matteo D´Isanto: CTO

Jürgen Wixler: Head of Sales & Business Development

Jürgen Gladis: Production Manager 

Andreas Großbichler: Project Manager

Pratibha Yadav: Head of Entomology

For more information on the industrial side of Livin Farms please visit - www.livinfarms.com 

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