Investment Climate Podcast

Episode 103: Opalia: Jennifer Côté on Navigating a 14-Month Biotech Seed Round and Making Whole Milk from Mammary Cells
In this episode, I sit down with Jennifer Côté, CEO and Co-Founder of Opalia, a Montreal-based biotechnology company pioneering animal-free dairy by producing real whole milk from bovine mammary cells. Jennifer shares a transparent, reality-check account of what it takes to close a $3.2M CAD Seed round in the challenging 2026 funding climate. She breaks down the technical differentiation that separates cellular dairy from the struggling cultivated meat sector, explains how to leverage non-dilutive government grants, and details the grueling process of filtering a pipeline of 400 investors down to a committed, high-quality cap table.
🎧 Listen to the full episode to hear Jennifer’s take on building a "Type A" hyper-transparent data room, how she fields macro environmental objections, and why real transparency beats over-inflated hype when partnering with sector-specific venture capital.
Key Facts: Opalia
Jennifer Côté: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-cote/
Website: opaliafoods.com
Headquarters: Montreal, Canada.
Goal: To eliminate the intensive global reliance on cattle by manufacturing authentic whole milk (with matching functional proteins, fats, and taste) using a highly capital-efficient, mammalian cell-based bioreactor system.
Milestone: Raised $6M CAD total over 6 years (with remarkable capital efficiency compared to peers raising hundreds of millions) and recently closed the first $3.2M CAD tranche of their Seed round.
Blurb
OPALIA is a Canadian cellular agriculture company pioneering a new era of sustainable dairy. Instead of using precision fermentation (yeast/bacteria) or slaughtering animals for cultivated meat, Opalia isolates mammary gland cells from cows just once and initiates lactation continuously inside custom, low-cost bioreactor vessels.

Episode 102: Branch Venture Group: Lauren Abda on the Strength of the Syndicate Model and De-Risking AgriFood Investing
In this episode, I sit down with Lauren Abda, Co-Founder of Branch Venture Group, a Boston-based angel investment network and syndicate deployed heavily into the future of food. Lauren delivers a masterclass on why the syndicate model has outperformed traditional mega-funds during the current "AgriFood winter," explaining how pairing early-stage founders with highly strategic operators creates durable competitive moats. We discuss the shifting macroeconomic landscape, why food infrastructure remains dramatically undercapitalized despite essential demand, and how Lauren leverages a 10-year-old vetting process to filter thousands of inbound deals into 29 high-performing investments.
🎧 Listen to the full episode to hear Lauren’s take on uncovering "unfair advantages" in early-stage startups, the unique acquisition dynamics of top food corporations, and how she manages the psychological grit required to back unconventional innovation before consensus forms.
Key Facts: Branch Venture Group
Lauren Abda: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurenabda/
Website: https://www.branchventuregroup.com/
Headquarters: Boston, Massachusetts.
Goal: To back the brightest founders building the future of the food system, delivering venture-scale returns by combining visionary innovation with strict operational discipline.
Milestone: Over a decade in the space; 29 unique investments made since 2017. The portfolio boasts two unicorns, multiple markups, and nearly half (50%) of the portfolio is currently cash-flow break-even.
Blurb
BRANCH VENTURE GROUP is an angel investment network and syndicate specializing in early-stage food and agriculture innovation. Evolving out of Branch Food—a premier Boston-based innovation platform—the syndicate serves as a bridge between early-stage founders and a powerful network of experienced industry operators, executives, and strategic partners.

Episode 102: Champel Capital: Amir Weitmann on why the "Plant-Based Meat" thesis failed and pivoting a $50M fund to Defense Tech 
In this episode, I sit down with Amir Weitmann, Managing Partner at Champel Capital, an Israeli venture fund that deployed heavily into FoodTech across its first two funds (backing standouts like Remilk and Aleph Farms). Amir delivers a brutally honest post-mortem on the alternative protein sector, explaining exactly why Champel avoided investing in plant-based meat companies like Beyond Meat, opting instead for breakthrough Deep Tech. We discuss the shifting macroeconomic landscape that caused FoodTech funding to collapse to 15% of its 2021 peak, and why Champel's upcoming third fund is pivoting entirely away from AgriFood into Defense and Security. 
🎧 Listen to the full episode to hear Amir’s unapologetic take on why ESG should be about human prosperity, not "worshipping Mother Earth," and the terrifying psychological burden of managing LP money. 

Key Facts Champel Capital:
Amir Weitmann: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amirweitmann/
Website: champelcapital.com
Headquarters: Israel
Goal: To deliver outsized venture returns (targeting 5x fund return / 25%-35% IRR) by backing true technological breakthroughs, transitioning from early FoodTech investments into Defense and Security.
Milestone: Raised over $50 million across two funds, backing major FoodTech players like Remilk and Aleph Farms, and is currently actively fundraising for Fund III.

Blurb
CHAMPEL CAPITAL is a Swiss venture capital firm specializing in Israeli deep tech — physical-world innovation over software-only plays. They back founders building defensible, hard-to-commoditize technologies across defense & security, medtech, insurtech, watertech, foodtech, agritech, and mobility. Investment thesis centers on three pillars: exceptional founders with genuine market vision, deep tech with durable competitive moats, and large addressable markets. Stage and check size not specified; primary value proposition is serving as a gateway between European capital and Israel's startup ecosystem.

Episode 101: Planetary: Charles Pontvianne on the 16M CHF Series A, licensing IP to sugar giants, and bypassing CapEx 
In this episode, I sit down with Charles Pontvianne, CFO of Planetary, a Swiss biotech startup that recently announced a massive 16 million CHF Series A co-led by Radical Capital and Oetker Group. Charles breaks down their highly unusual "middleman" equity story: instead of building their own massive fermentation facilities, Planetary licenses their biomanufacturing IP directly to legacy sugar producers, utilizing their existing infrastructure to upcycle sucrose side-streams into high-protein B2B ingredients. We discuss how Planetary successfully navigated the dreaded "Food-for-Fuel" ethical bottleneck by producing "Food-for-Food," and how getting retail giant Aldi to reorder their vegan chicken fillet was the ultimate commercial derisking mechanism for their Series A investors. 
🎧 Listen to the full episode to hear Charles explain the exact structure of their data room and why treating your fundraise like selling a house is critical to creating VC FOMO. 

Key Facts Planetary:
Charles Pontvianne: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlespontvianne/
Website: https://www.planetarygroup.ch/
Headquarters: Switzerland 
Goal: To act as the missing link between industrial agriculture and FoodTech by licensing biomanufacturing IP to global carbohydrate/sugar producers, upcycling their sucrose side-streams into Mycoprotein ingredients for the B2B market.
Milestone: Closed a 16 million CHF Series A (co-led by Radical Capital and Oetker Group) while successfully scaling up a 50 cubic meter fermentation plant in Switzerland and launching a Mycoprotein-based vegan chicken fillet in Aldi.

Blurb
PLANETARY is a Swiss full-stack fermentation platform building and operating a global network of biomanufacturing facilities. Their proprietary BioBlocks™ fermentation and AI platform handles scale-up, process optimization, and production across three verticals: mycoprotein ingredients, precision fermentation-derived products, and bio-based materials. They are infrastructure-as-a-service for the bioeconomy — clients access Planetary's facilities, platform, and expertise to get fermentation-based products to market with optimized COGS and sustainability metrics.

Episode 101: Planetary: Charles Pontvianne on the 16M CHF Series A, licensing IP to sugar giants, and bypassing CapEx 
In this episode, I sit down with Charles Pontvianne, CFO of Planetary, a Swiss biotech startup that recently announced a massive 16 million CHF Series A co-led by Radical Capital and Oetker Group. Charles breaks down their highly unusual "middleman" equity story: instead of building their own massive fermentation facilities, Planetary licenses their biomanufacturing IP directly to legacy sugar producers, utilizing their existing infrastructure to upcycle sucrose side-streams into high-protein B2B ingredients. We discuss how Planetary successfully navigated the dreaded "Food-for-Fuel" ethical bottleneck by producing "Food-for-Food," and how getting retail giant Aldi to reorder their vegan chicken fillet was the ultimate commercial derisking mechanism for their Series A investors. 
🎧 Listen to the full episode to hear Charles explain the exact structure of their data room and why treating your fundraise like selling a house is critical to creating VC FOMO. 

Key Facts Planetary:
Charles Pontvianne: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlespontvianne/
Website: https://www.planetarygroup.ch/
Headquarters: Switzerland 
Goal: To act as the missing link between industrial agriculture and FoodTech by licensing biomanufacturing IP to global carbohydrate/sugar producers, upcycling their sucrose side-streams into Mycoprotein ingredients for the B2B market.
Milestone: Closed a 16 million CHF Series A (co-led by Radical Capital and Oetker Group) while successfully scaling up a 50 cubic meter fermentation plant in Switzerland and launching a Mycoprotein-based vegan chicken fillet in Aldi.

Blurb
PLANETARY is a Swiss full-stack fermentation platform building and operating a global network of biomanufacturing facilities. Their proprietary BioBlocks™ fermentation and AI platform handles scale-up, process optimization, and production across three verticals: mycoprotein ingredients, precision fermentation-derived products, and bio-based materials. They are infrastructure-as-a-service for the bioeconomy — clients access Planetary's facilities, platform, and expertise to get fermentation-based products to market with optimized COGS and sustainability metrics.