Investment Climate

Agronomics Limited: Jim Mellon shares how to get funded in 2026
Investment 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 65:  Agronomics Limited: Jim Mellon shares how to get funded in 2026
In this episode, I sit down with Jim Mellon, the billionaire entrepreneur and Executive Director of Agronomics, a leading listed company in the field of cellular agriculture. Jim provides a candid, no-holds-barred post-mortem on the recent collapses of industry darlings Believer Meats and Meatable, attributing their downfall to gross overspending and "over-speced" facilities. He contrasts this with his current "frugal" playbook, revealing how portfolio company Clean Food Group acquired a fully functional production facility in Liverpool for just £1M—a fraction of the cost of new builds. Jim also breaks down his aggressive expansion into the Middle East, detailing the specific energy advantages and 50% government subsidies that make the UAE the next logical hub for fermentation. 🎧 Listen to the full episode to hear Jim’s forecast for the next 12 months and why he believes "stainless steel lasts forever.”

Key Facts Agronomics Limited:
Goal: To invest in "Clean Food" (Cellular Agriculture and Precision Fermentation) with a focus on IP ownership and asset-light or distressed-asset models.
Milestone: Portfolio company Clean Food Group recently acquired a production facility for £1M and is set to produce thousands of tons of oil next year; Meatly received approval for pet food in the UK.

Alex’s Top Findings:
The "Frugal" Playbook: Buying Distressed Assets. The era of building greenfield mega-facilities is over. Jim’s winning strategy involves identifying distressed industrial assets and repurposing them. By buying a facility in Liverpool for £1M (essentially the cost of scrap) rather than building new, the cost of capital drops from ~25% of turnover to 4%.  ”We recognized that stainless steel lasts forever. So if you can acquire stainless steel that's maybe been in production for 50 years and refurbish it, it's a lot cheaper than getting it made in China... We paid 1 million pounds for that... It means that the capital cost of carry for that company... is 4% of turnover.”
Why the Giants Fell: Over-Specing and Over-Valuation. Jim offers a blunt assessment of why Believer Meats and Meatable entered administration. It wasn't just the market downturn; it was an internal failure to manage cash burn and an obsession with building "state-of-the-art" facilities that the unit economics couldn't support yet.  “The symptomatic problem of the companies that have gone bad for investors have been overspending and overvaluation... Believer Meats... built a state-of-the-art facility in North Carolina which was over specced, frankly. And Meatable was also, in my opinion, overspending... leases of 1.6 million euros a year... high wages. Lots of unnecessary activities.”
What “Good” Looks Like: Frugal + Opportunistic + Controlled IP + Near Market. Jim gives a clear success checklist: founders who spend carefully, own the critical tech, and can sell something in the near term — not a decade out. “ So what we're looking for is companies that have a frugal mindset, have an opportunistic mindset, that have IP t

The Yield Lab: Gentiane Gorlier shares how to get funded in 2026
Investment 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 64:  The Yield Lab: Gentiane Gorlier shares how to get funded in 2026
In this episode, I sit down with Gentiane Gorlier, General Partner at The Yield Lab Europe, an early-stage VC fund with 32 investments across the AgriFood value chain. Gentiane shares a refreshingly contrarian view on why animal protein and health remain critical investment areas for the next decade, despite the hype around alternative proteins. We dive deep into why the "Silicon Valley SaaS" model breaks when applied to biology, the harsh reality that consumers will not pay a "Green Premium," and The Yield Lab’s specific playbook for engaging corporate strategics. Currently raising their second fund, Gentiane explains how they help startups navigate the "valley of death" by bringing multiple corporates to the cap table to ensure balance and commercial viability. 🎧 Listen to the full episode to hear how Gentiane identifies deep-tech winners and why she believes the best time to invest in AgriFood is right now.
Key Facts The Yield Lab:
Goal: Enabling entrepreneurs to sustainably revolutionize agrifood systems globally.
Milestone: Successfully managing a portfolio of 32 companies and currently raising Fund II to deploy larger follow-on checks (up to €6M).
Alex’s Top Findings:
The Contrarian Bet: Animal Health is Here to Stay. While many investors pivoted entirely to alt-protein, The Yield Lab Europe maintains that animal protein remains a cornerstone of the global food system. The focus is on efficiency, ethics, and vaccines to reduce emissions per unit, rather than waiting for an alt-protein takeover that isn't technically or economically ready.  ”We strongly believe that animal protein and animal health should continue to be in the investment thesis for the next years. We absolutely believe that alternative protein is part of the future, but we're simply not there yet... So the real question for us is not whether it exists, but how efficiently and responsibly and ethically it's produced.”
The "Green Premium" is a Myth: Unit Economics Must Lead. The collapse of the insect farming and indoor ag hype cycles taught a brutal lesson: neither consumers nor corporations will pay more just for sustainability. Startups must reach price parity and have a clear path to profitability without relying on a "sustainability tax" that the market refuses to pay. “Nobody wants to pay for sustainability, and that's really something we learn... The economics needs to make sense. Corporate [partners] won't buy your product if it's more expensive... We have seen companies that pivoted away from food ingredients into cosmetics just simply because the food market was not ready to pay the price.”
Strategic Corporate Engagement: The "Two-Corporate" Rule. Engaging corporates too early can burn a startup, but engaging them right is the key to an exit. Gentiane advises against being beholden to a single strategic partner. Instead, aim for two or more strategics to create competitive tension and ensure the startup isn't "manhandled" by one company's internal restructuring or strategy changes. “One of the biggest mistakes startups do is when they go too early to corporate. Bec

First Bight Ventures: Veronica Breckenridge shares how to get funded in 2026
Investment 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 2026
In 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 2026
Investment 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 2026
In 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 2026
Investment 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 2026
In 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