The Venture Codex

Participated · Seed · Apr 2026

Cosaic develops a new category of food ingredients using yeast fermentation to provide creaminess, stability and functional performance in one ingredient, aiming to reduce reliance on multiple components and additives. The company positions its platform to help food and beverage manufacturers address formulation trade-offs between clean label, sensory performance, and cost. Cosaic employs 15 people and is in a pre-Series A stage, preparing for U.S. market entry next year. Its recent partnership with Ingredion and strategic investment from dsm-firmenich Ventures serve as commercial and strategic validation. The startup plans to use recent funding to complete regulatory work, scale production, and run industrial trials with large clients as it moves toward launch readiness.

Participated · Series A · Nov 2025

Founded in 2017 in Ede, the Netherlands, SAIA Agrobotics has engineered an inverted greenhouse model where crops are shuttled on a logistics system to fixed robots for scanning, deleafing, and harvesting. This approach removes the need for mobile field robots, giving the machines full 360-degree access to each plant and enabling harvesting 52 weeks a year. The company claims its technology can raise crop yields by 20 % while cutting total greenhouse labour requirements in half and delivering over 99 % picking accuracy. Earlier this year SAIA completed the world’s first fully automated greenhouse and installed its first commercial modules with customer Growers United. After six years of R&D, the startup holds multiple international patents covering its plant logistics and robotics concepts. With total funding now exceeding €20 million, SAIA intends to accelerate commercial roll-out and enter the broader market next year. The new capital will support scaling production, further technological refinement, and expansion of its customer base across controlled-environment agriculture.

Led · Seed · May 2025

Gardin builds an optical photosynthesis sensor combined with AI to measure crop photosynthesis in real time, providing growers early insight into plant health and development. The system is deployed across more than 20 crop species, from algae to tomatoes. Led by CEO and founder Sumanta Talukdar, the company is based in Oxford, UK. Gardin plans to use the new funding to enhance its platform and expand its commercial team to grow its customer base across continents. The article reports a $4.5M Seed 2 financing, which represents the company’s latest outside funding. No revenue or user metrics were disclosed in the article. Gardin combines remote optical sensors with machine learning to provide growers detailed, non-destructive measurements of individual-plant physiological performance. Its sensors can detect growth anomalies such as underwatering days earlier than expert agronomists, enabling faster corrective action. The product targets controlled-environment agriculture — greenhouses and indoor/vertical farms — where light and temperature can be regulated. Gardin plans to expand its product lineup with crop forecasting and nutritional density mapping, ramp up production capabilities, and continue marketing across Europe and North America. The company has seen strong interest from the sector and reports a steady sales pipeline. Since launching in 2020, Gardin has raised a total of $12 million, including the recent seed round. Gardin develops optical phenotyping hardware and accompanying analytics software to measure and monitor nutritional value of food across the supply chain. The company uses multispectral data fusion, remote sensing and computer vision to capture biochemical signatures and quantify plant physiology and compound density with high fidelity. Its full‑stack product is designed to run like an OS in the background, integrate with existing producer architectures, and optimise growing environments to lower costs, reduce carbon footprint and cut waste. Gardin targets both traditional agriculture and controlled environment agriculture (CEA) and aims to become a new food‑production gold standard. The startup has partnered with crop and plant physiologists and phenotyping experts to identify key biochemical mechanisms for different crops. Gardin has secured pilot trials with supermarket chains, food producers and vertical farms that are ready to go live early this year, and recently raised external pre‑seed funding.

Participated · Equity · Jan 2025

Agurotech is an Amsterdam-based AgriTech company (founded in 2020) that develops, manufactures and delivers hardware and software for data-driven farming, including sensor technology, weather stations and applications. Its platform provides real-time data, soil-condition insights and AI-driven forecasts to help farmers optimise water, frost protection, fertigation, pesticides and crop protection usage. The company says its system has been proving for nearly five years and currently serves hundreds of customers. Agurotech’s tools enable farmers to make informed decisions and improve resource efficiency and sustainability. The new funding will support faster international expansion and local market rollouts. Agurotech develops and delivers proprietary hardware and software—including sensor technology, weather stations, and applications—that give farmers real-time soil, weather data and AI-powered predictions. The platform helps farmers optimize resource use (notably water) to increase crop yield and improve sustainability. The company is led by founders Joelle van den Brand and Lilia Planjyan and is female-led. Agurotech plans to scale up production in 2023 and to expand beyond its current focus in the Netherlands into international markets. Its technology will be used in the EU-supported “LIFE – The Future of Farming” project, which involves 300 farmers and partners across six EU countries. The team expects to grow over the next five years and aims for international market leadership in key segments.

Participated · Equity · Oct 2024

FarmDroid develops a lightweight, easy-to-operate solar-powered field robot that can sow, remove weeds, and perform precision spot spraying via a micro spray system while operating continuously in the field. The robot is positioned as a sustainable alternative to traditional farming, enabling mechanical weed removal that can reduce certain pesticide use by up to 100 percent versus conventional methods. FarmDroid has proven traction primarily on organic farms and has surpassed 500 robots in the field, with a near-term milestone of 1,000 units. The company highlights benefits including reduced labour costs, lower chemical inputs, preserved soil health, and increased productivity for farmers and plant breeders. FarmDroid plans to expand further globally and target both organic and conventional open-field farming following the introduction of its spot-spraying application. The business emphasizes affordability and scalability of its solution to support the green transition in agriculture.