Bay Area food innovation company Voyage Foods (cocoa-free chocolate, bean-free coffee, nut-free spreads) has closed a round of $52M, bringing its total funding to $94M. It is considered an A+ round, mainly from prior investors, co-led by Level One Fund and Horizons Ventures, along with participation from SOSV, Collaborative Fund, and Nimble Partners.
Keying into the confidence around Voyage is Cargill, which signed an exclusive global deal to supply commercial/B2B customers in a partnership just announced April 8. “Cargill is proud to partner with Voyage Foods…this partnership is just one of the many ways that we are future-proofing our portfolio and meeting consumer demands and market regulations around sustainability and health,” says Inge Demeyere, managing director of idulgence Europe at Cargill. Cocoa prices are up a staggering 250% over last year and a third-party LCA showed that Voyage’s cocoa-free products are even more sustainable than conventional chocolate.
Level One's founding partner James Stewart says Voyage's technology “has set a new standard for commercialization in the food tech space by producing replicas of essential food products and ingredients that are both extremely cost competitive against, and more sustainable than, incumbent products. As the only company in the world with the validated ability to make these replicas at scale, Voyage’s newly announced partnership with Cargill makes these products available to the world’s major food companies as an immediate solution to fluctuating commodity prices and supply chain disruptions. Level One Fund is proud to co-lead this round with Horizons Ventures and provide the capital necessary for Voyage to scale up production and yield an immediate and meaningful impact on the world.”
Voyage’s allergy-friendly, school-safe spreads launched nationwide at Walmart in fall 2023, an unusual score for a startup.
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