Bodil Sidén, Kost Capital, venture capital, food tech

Kost Capital raising inaugural fund to invest in European food tech startups

Bodil Sidén, Kost Capital, venture capital, food tech

Image Credits: Kost Capital / Bodil Sidén, general partner at Kost Capital

Kost Capital, a new Danish venture capital fund, is out to bring better food to more people.

Kost means “diet” in the Scandinavian language, but it will most likely be difficult to stick to one while working there. That’s because Kost Capital shares space with Kost Studio, a food development studio that doubles as a test kitchen for universities and markets to collaborate and develop novel food products.

General partner Bodil Sidén, who started the firm with LPs Kasper Hulthin, Christian Tang-Jespersen, Mark Emil Hermansen and Jacob Lee Ørnstrand, declined to say how much of the €25 million was raised so far, but did say backers include Danish sovereign fund EIFO and Kost’s founding limited partners.

Kost Capital invests in pre-seed and seed startups across Europe, focusing on B2B inputs in the future of food. It has already made three investments: Estonian palm oil replacement company Äio, Numi, a French infant formula company and Danish ingredient company Nutrumami.

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Sidén’s journey to venture capital started in a quite unique place. She was in Swedish politics as a member of the Moderates’ national party board, a press secretary to the Fredrik Reinfeldt government and worked for the Swedish ministers.

“I’ve always been very passionate about societal change — my parents are migrant teachers, so I’ve always been very much exposed to justice and global issues,” Sidén told TechCrunch. “Then I joined the world of tech, working on communications in the Nordics for Uber where I learned everything about big tech and how you scale tech companies and marketplaces from a local setting.”

She then partnered with Kamjar Hahabdolahi and Erik Halvord to form blq invest, a venture capital fund in Stockholm that did hands-on company building, for example working with technical companies that lacked a way to commercialize.

After two funds, Sidén got into contact with the investors behind Kost, who were looking for a general partner to help build a platform and set strategy. That’s what they have been doing for the past year with the help of senior associate Paul Archambeau, she said.

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Kost’s investment thesis takes a nod from Sidén’s political origins and from the notion that food is powered by the bioeconomy. Acknowledging a growing population, climate change, food waste, health issues and policy changes, Sidén says more funding for food tech is needed.

“Looking at the five coming years, all macrotrends speak for it, and it’s so under invested,” she said. “If you look at where the money has gone, it’s actually like logistics and brands and not even food. It’s a massive opportunity, and hopefully also generalist VCs will come back into the space. They took a few hits in the beginning with a lot of B2C, and it was hard to assess different types of business models, but I think that might change now.”

That said, one of Sidén’s milestones is for Kost to “be the best co-investor in Europe” with food tech and generalist investors looking for a firm with scale-up expertise and food-specialized abilities.

Meanwhile, food tech is having a moment in Europe. Not only are we seeing larger-than-average investments being made, for example, into Infinite Roots, which makes proteins from mycelium, but more funds are being raised, as well. This week, Eatable Adventures, an accelerator helping to create and support food tech in Spain and Italy, said it closed on half of a €30 million investment vehicle called Europe Foodtech Acceleration Fund I SCSp.

We are also seeing more government support. For example, the United Kingdom is sinking £2 billion into biotechnology, particularly around food. The European Union has its own €50 million plans to scale precision fermentation, while Aleph Farms was granted regulatory approval in Israel for its cultivated meat.

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Niremia Collective, venture capital, Naoko Okumoto, Nichol Bradford

Niremia Collective closes inaugural fund with $22.5M focused on well-being technology

Niremia Collective, venture capital, Naoko Okumoto, Nichol Bradford

Image Credits: Marc Olivier Le Blanc / Niremia Collective co-founders Nichol Bradford and Naoko Okumoto

The global pandemic put a spotlight on people’s yearning for wellness and well-being. Niremia Collective, a Silicon Valley–based venture capital firm, is tapping into that — and the gender disparity in VC — with its first fund of $22.5 million in capital commitments.

Niremia Collective is the latest women-led debut fund, joining others like New Fare Partners and Curate Capital, Pact, Double Down and f7 Ventures.

Founders Naoko Okumoto and Nichol Bradford met in 2018 and worked on various projects before coming together as investors to support startups at the pre-seed and seed stages focused on well-being technology.

Niremia got its name from the combination of “iremia,” meaning a state of peace and tranquility in Greek, and the first letter of the founders’ names.

“Human happiness and health should be at the center of the world,” Okumoto told TechCrunch. “We are born to be happy, and we want humans to be the best version of themselves. Making an investment into technology enables people to tap into that human potential.”

New Fare Partners is latest female-led VC to close first fund

Okumoto, who spent 17 years working with large tech companies, has a storied history of investing and building businesses in the U.S. and Japan. She was previously managing U.S. investment and collective impact community building for Mistletoe Venture Partners, a social impact fund founded by Taizo Son. Okumoto was also the CEO of Amber Bridge Partners, an advisory firm specializing in cross-border business development, investment and operations.

Bradford, who also worked in tech and venture building, went into the video game business, working at Disney Interactive and Vivendi Games. While in corporate strategy at Vivendi, she was part of the deal team in the Activision Blizzard merger with Microsoft. She is also the founder of Transformative Tech, touted as “the world’s largest ecosystem in well-being technology” with some 9,000 members across 72 countries.

Mistletoe Venture Partners is one of the limited partners of the new fund and is joined by domestic and international corporations and institutional investors, including Shionogi Pharmaceuticals and MIXI Inc.

As the global wellness market is poised to reach $8.5 trillion by 2027, Niremia Collective intends to provide capital and management resources to high-growth well-being startups. In addition, the firm wants to incubate new businesses and be a resource for those planning to enter the sector.

“We invest in mental, social and emotional well-being as well as human purpose and performance,” Bradford said. “All of this is human potential and technology. It’s how we heal, thrive and reach our highest potential as human beings. You have to have mental health to be able to do that.”

Niremia Collective has made 12 investments from its debut fund so far. Those include Feno, which offers AI-powered oral care services; Tripp, a VR/XR wellness platform; and DeepWell, which specializes in mental health treatment using gaming.

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