Investment Climate

First Bight Ventures: Veronica Breckenridge shares how to get funded in 2026Investment Climate Podcast: Fundraising Playbooks From Food Tech CEOs and VCs In this podcast series, Alex Shandrovsky interviews investors about benchmarks for funding Alt Proteins in 2025 and uncovers the investment playbooks of successful Climate Tech CEOs and Leading VCs.Podcast Host Alex Shandrovksy is a strategic advisor to numerous global food tech accelerators and companies, including alternative proteins and cellular agriculture leaders. His focus is on investor relations and post-raise scale for agrifood tech companies. This podcast is syndicated through our media partners, Foodtech Weekly and Vegconomist.Episode 63: First Bight Ventures: Veronica Breckenridge shares how to get funded in 2026In this episode, I sit down with Veronica Breckenridge, Managing Partner of First Bight Ventures, for a deep, no-nonsense look at why most industrial biotech companies fail—and how a different investment model can actually work. We talk about why “industrial biotech is not venture-backable” is a lazy myth, how CapEx-heavy businesses can deliver strong equity returns if founders know how to finance assets without burning dilution, and why SaaS-style thinking has done real damage to biomanufacturing. Veronica unpacks her thesis around drop-in, cost-parity technologies, design-for-manufacturability, early strategic validation, and why she avoids product-market risk like the plague. We dig into her portfolio decisions, including a rare AgriFood bet, the role of non-dilutive capital (including DoD and government funding), why green premiums don’t exist but health premiums do, and why most exits in this space will be disciplined M&A—not unicorn fantasies. If you’re a founder or investor navigating deep tech, bio-based chemicals, or industrial biotech in the post-hype era, this conversation is a masterclass in realism, capital efficiency, and how to build companies that can actually survive—and exit.Key Facts First Bight Ventures:Goal: Capture the massive value creation opportunity, a multi-trillion-dollar industrial transition from petroleum to biology-based manufacturing for chemicals and materials.Alex’s Top Findings:Industrial Biotech Is Venture-Backable (If You Finance CapEx Correctly). Veronica’s core contrarian belief is that industrial biotech isn’t “uninvestable” — founders just finance it incorrectly. When CapEx is funded with project finance, credit, or non-dilutive capital instead of equity, companies can still generate strong venture-style returns without relying on SaaS-like margins. ” The biggest contrarian I think for me is industrial biotech is  not worth investing. My belief is that's not true. 'cause if you know how to  leverage, if you understand how to finance that CapEx,  without using  equity capital,  you could still grow an equity.  Efficient model  in term of going to market and commercialize so that your equity return can be  still solid.”Early Strategic Buyers De-Risk Exit, Not Just Commercialization. First Bight introduces strategics early — not for optics, but to define specs, manufacturability, and eventual M&A pathways. Veronica won’t invest unless she already sees credible strategic interest shaping the company’s trajectory. “I don’t invest unless I already feel like I’m working with the strategic — they help define the specs you must hit to be acquired.”Capital Efficiency Is a Strategy, Not A Constraint. Veronica repeatedly contrasts founders who “burn equity” versus those who design the company to qualify for debt, project finance, and grants. Her point is blunt: unless you’re Elon Musk, you can’t raise unlimited capital to pay for expensive mistakes — so the business must be structured to avoid them. “You’re not Elon Musk… you’re

Oyster Bay Venture Capital: Felix Leonhardt shares how to get funded in 2026Investment Climate Podcast: Fundraising Playbooks From Food Tech CEOs and VCs In this podcast series, Alex Shandrovsky interviews investors about benchmarks for funding Alt Proteins in 2025 and uncovers the investment playbooks of successful Climate Tech CEOs and Leading VCs.Podcast Host Alex Shandrovksy is a strategic advisor to numerous global food tech accelerators and companies, including alternative proteins and cellular agriculture leaders. His focus is on investor relations and post-raise scale for agrifood tech companies. This podcast is syndicated through our media partners, Foodtech Weekly and Vegconomist.Episode 62:Oyster Bay Venture Capital: Felix Leonhardt shares how to get funded in 2026In this episode, I sat down with Felix Leonhardt, Partner at Oyster Bay Venture Capital, to unpack what it really looks like to raise and run a €100M+ impact food/ag fund in today’s market—and how founders can learn from the GP playbook. We got into why they deliberately built a “proof-of-partnership” SPV between Fund I and Fund II (four concentrated deals), why they sized Fund II around having enough firepower to lead seed, lead/co-lead Series A, and still follow into B, and how painful “errors of omission” (not being able to follow on) shaped their strategy. Felix broke down fundraising as a pure sales funnel (ICP, pipeline, conversions) and explained why “two years is normal” when LPs are trusting you for a decade—plus the unique frustration that funds don’t create urgency until the very end. Finally, we talked about why their LP base is heavily food-industry operators (mid-sized, capital-rich businesses who feel disruption directly), why that doesn’t limit their investing (because it matches their thesis), and what they want most from the community: more high-quality deal flow that can genuinely move the food system forward.Key Facts Oyster Bay Venture Capital:Goal: Team up with the rare founders who disrupt the food system for the better.Alex’s Top Findings:Fundraising a Fund Is Still Just Sales (Treat It Like a Funnel). Felix frames fund fundraising the same way he sold vegan ice cream: define your ICP, build a pipeline, work the funnel. The mindset shift matters—LPs are giving you money for ~10 years, so a 2-year sales cycle is normal, not a failure. That realism keeps you consistent instead of being emotionally reactive. ”  Now I think any fundraising process is a sales process. It's a funnel. I have a customer profile, and I have different sorts of customer segments. I just need to understand which ones are the most likely ones to convert and obviously focus on these and build a pipeline of leads that we can target.”The Real Lesson From Fund I: Under-Following Is the Most Expensive Mistake. Oyster Bay VC didn’t size Fund II bigger for ego—they sized it so they could lead, follow on, and have governance strength. Fund I picked strong companies, but the fund was too small to keep firepower for follow-ons, which cost upside. They also saw cases where being a small investor meant watching “wrong” decisions without leverage to influence outcomes. “The error of omission… is the most costly and most painful one… we missed out on a lot of upside because we couldn’t follow on.”Your Best LPs Might Not Be “Institutional LPs” (Food Industry Families > Traditional Fund Allocators). They learned that many classic institutional fund allocators weren’t the match: the fund is “too small” for them and the sector is niche. Instead, Oyster Bay’s best-fit LP base became mid-sized to large food-industry owners/operators who feel disruption, don’t have big innovation departments, and value access to dealflow + insight. “We learned quite quickly that… traditional fund investors are n

McWin Capital Partners: Martin Davalos shares how to get funded in 2026Investment Climate Podcast: Fundraising Playbooks From Food Tech CEOs and VCs In this podcast series, Alex Shandrovsky interviews investors about benchmarks for funding Alt Proteins in 2025 and uncovers the investment playbooks of successful Climate Tech CEOs and Leading VCs.Podcast Host Alex Shandrovksy is a strategic advisor to numerous global food tech accelerators and companies, including alternative proteins and cellular agriculture leaders. His focus is on investor relations and post-raise scale for agrifood tech companies. This podcast is syndicated through our media partners, Foodtech Weekly and Vegconomist.Episode 61: McWin Capital Partners: Martin Davalos shares how to get funded in 2026In this episode, I sit down with Martin Davalos, Partner at McWin Capital Partners, to unpack how a serious food-tech investor actually thinks about this market. We talk about McWin’s unique model of combining one of Europe’s largest restaurant platforms with a focused food-tech fund, and how that creates real “farm-to-fork” synergies for portfolio companies. Martin uses The EVERY Company as a live case study—why McWin led both the Series C and now the Series D, what convinced them the tech and regulatory risk were truly de-risked, and why starting with bakery applications and egg replacement is such a powerful commercial wedge (price stability, guaranteed supply, and “better-for-you” fortification in products like high-protein donuts). We then dive into the hard stuff: down rounds, pay-to-play, milestones, follow-on decisions, and how founders should approach their existing investors long before runway gets short. Martin also explains why food-tech can still deliver solid VC-style returns—if you’re realistic about exits, obsessive about unit economics, and willing to build deep, hands-on relationships between founders and investors.Key Facts McWin Capital Partners:Goal: Lead the food industry through positive change and create value on behalf of investors and portfolio companies by leveraging its scale, network, and experience to deliver outstanding returns.Alex’s Top Findings:How McWin Decides on Follow-On: “What Needs to Be True?” For follow-on investments, McWin basically reruns IC from scratch: revisit the original thesis, examine what happened since, and ask, “What needs to be true for us to keep backing this?” Sometimes that means a full support round; sometimes a more cautious bridge, but it’s always a deliberate, structured decision. ” So, for follow-on, we look at our initial investment thesis on that company, what has happened since our investment thesis, and then the second piece is what needs to be true for us to continue supporting this company.”Why EVERY Became a Conviction Bet (Series C and D Lead). McWin first led EVERY’s Series C and then doubled down to lead the Series D because, in their view, the company has crossed a major inflection point: tech risk reduced, regulatory boxes ticked, real customers, and a serious IP moat. For Martin, this is the transition from “R&D project” to “real business” — exactly when he wants to size up. “We find EVERY is in a fantastic inflection point… It’s moved from an R&D company to now producing and selling a product.”What Happens After Your First VC Call (and What You Should Ask). Inside McWin, an initial call is followed by an immediate internal calibration session: different team members (tech, finance, digital, ops) compare notes, decide if it fits their themes, and, if yes, move it to a structured pipeline + IC process. Martin wishes founders would be more proactive in asking how McWin can help beyond the check. “After that call, we figure out… does this company fit within our strategy… and what is the

Chromologics: Gerit Tolborg shares how to get funded in 2026Investment Climate Podcast: Fundraising Playbooks From Food Tech CEOs and VCs In this podcast series, Alex Shandrovsky interviews investors about benchmarks for funding Alt Proteins in 2025 and uncovers the investment playbooks of successful Climate Tech CEOs and Leading VCs.Podcast Host Alex Shandrovksy is a strategic advisor to numerous global food tech accelerators and companies, including alternative proteins and cellular agriculture leaders. His focus is on investor relations and post-raise scale for agrifood tech companies. This podcast is syndicated through our media partners, Foodtech Weekly and Vegconomist.Episode 60: Chromologics: Gerit Tolborg shares how to get funded in 2026In this episode, I sit down with Gerit Tolborg, co-founder & CEO of Chromologics, to unpack how you turn a PhD discovery—a fungus that naturally makes a brilliant red pigment—into a venture-backed ingredient company on the brink of FDA/EFSA submission. We talk about why Chromologics chose to raise a fully insider round instead of going back to the market, how weird and “all-or-nothing” the regulatory world is for food colorants, and why red is both the biggest commercial opportunity and the hardest technical problem. Gerit walks through the real economics of natural colors (performance vs price vs supply chain risk), why their non-GMO fermentation process is a quiet superpower with regulators and consumers, and how she thinks about scaling via CMOs first instead of betting the company on a big CapEx plant. If you care about where the next generation of clean-label ingredients will actually come from—and what investors really underwrite in these plays—this conversation goes deep.Key Facts Chromologics:Goal: Develop fermentation-derived, natural food colors to replace unstable, supply-constrained, and animal-derived redsRecently raised €7 million from Novo Holdings, EIFO, Döhler Ventures, Collateral Good, and The Synergetic Group, bringing its total funding to nearly €20 million.Alex’s Top Findings:When Your Biggest Risk Is Invisible: Fundraising Around Regulation.  Chromologics deliberately raised a €7M internal round from existing shareholders (Novo Holdings, EIFO) instead of going to market. They’re at a sensitive regulatory inflection point where colors are “all or nothing” until dossier submission—something incumbents who’ve watched the journey can underwrite more easily than new VCs. This path lets Gerit focus on building and de-risking instead of burning months on data rooms and external DD for a hard-to-price stage.  ” So from an outside investor, the risk-reward balance is maybe not so easy to grasp as from someone who's actually been following our journey all the way and really seen us step-wise, maturing and de-risking the regulatory process along the way. So if there's enough capital around the table that we actually would need to bring the company from where we are today, it would have been a really big next value inflection point. Why waste valuable time and maybe risk unfavorable valuation if we can just manage on our own?”CDMOs Now, Strategic Exit Later. In today’s market, Gerit sees little sense in raising huge CapEx for a plant before proving commercial pull. Chromologics has already lined up a CDMO and designed its process to work at standard 100 m³ fermentation scale, where the economics make sense. Long term, she expects the real upside to be in a strategic exit: a large ingredient or food company plugging Chromologics’ IP and regulatory dossiers into its own, cheaper capacity. “ I think there's no investor right now that is willing to invest a hundred million euros into a CapEx project before I even have proof of business that might actually sell.  I think that's not really a realistic right no

Maia Farms: Gavin Schneider shares how to get funded in 2026Investment Climate Podcast: Fundraising Playbooks From Food Tech CEOs and VCs In this podcast series, Alex Shandrovsky interviews investors about benchmarks for funding Alt Proteins in 2025 and uncovers the investment playbooks of successful Climate Tech CEOs and Leading VCs.Podcast Host Alex Shandrovksy is a strategic advisor to numerous global food tech accelerators and companies, including alternative proteins and cellular agriculture leaders. His focus is on investor relations and post-raise scale for agrifood tech companies. This podcast is syndicated through our media partners, Foodtech Weekly and Vegconomist.Episode 59: Maia Farms: Gavin Schneider shares how to get funded in 2026In this episode, I sit down with Gavin Schneider, CEO and co-founder of Maia Farms, one of the most capital-efficient and rapidly scaling players in the mushroom and mycelium ingredient space. Gavin walks me through how Maia raised $6.5M—not from a planned target list, but from a warm intro by a larger fund that passed on leading and instead connected them to a perfect-fit Vancouver climate investor, leading to one of the fastest close cycles I’ve seen. We get into how Maia built momentum through major Canadian grants, strong customer references, and a data room ready for instant due diligence, and why staying asset-light and profitable matters more than ever in food-tech today. Gavin also shares the real challenge ahead: keeping up with demand as Maia moves from hundreds of tons to thinking in millions of tons of mushroom protein by 2050. This conversation is a masterclass in disciplined scaling, capital strategy, and building a food company that actually feeds people—and I’m excited for you to hear it.Key Facts Maia Farms:Goal: Support food makers with versatile, scalable solutions that outperform soy and mold-based alternatives.Recently raised $6.5M with Protein Industries Canada and Greater Vancouver Food Bank (GVFB) as investors.Alex’s Top Findings:Your Lead Investor Might Not Be on Your Original List. Gavin’s lead investor came via a warm intro from a larger fund that ultimately passed on Maia as “too early”—but then made the perfect connection to a local Vancouver climate-focused fund. He underscores the importance of always asking for feedback and referrals when a fund says no, because the best-fit investor may be one degree away, not already on your spreadsheet.  ” It was actually  an introduction  from  a larger fund with who we had been engaged and had some discussions. They felt that we were just too early for their  stage of investment.  So they made an introduction to another group, and things actually happened in quite rapid progression from the time of introduction  to  closing the deal, and it happened within a matter of weeks. You never know who will get you where you need to go.”A Simple, Thoughtful Data Room Beats Fancy Software. For this round, Maia ditched expensive data-room platforms and ran everything through Google Drive, using its newer security features plus a clear structure and “checklist” mindset. Gavin stress-tested the data room with incubator mentors and updated it continuously based on investor objections, treating every “no” as an input to improve the next investor’s experience. “If you’re already paying for [Google], I think that groups that are paying an extra $1,500 for a specialized data room… you’re able to get to the same result and the same level of security today with Google Drive. Follow your standard checklists… and ask yourself as you’re going through it: if I were interrogating this company, what pieces of information would I also like to see here?”Valuation, Geography, and Reframing Dilution. Adam says the strongest CEOs today are ruthlessl