Meet The Brinc Startups Who Are Solving Food, From Vegan Bacon To Cell-Based Pork To Human Breast Milk Infant Formula

Brinc, the Hong Kong-headquartered accelerator and venture capital that has committed to invest in over 1,000 climate-conscious firms over the next five years, just hosted its Virtual Demo Day today (January 28), which showcased the latest batch of startups graduating from their food tech accelerator programs. We take a look at the young startups who are bringing their solutions to the table to help solve the problems in our currently unsustainable global food system, innovating everything from vegan bacon to mycelium fermentation seafood, cultivated pork and so much more. We checked in with all the teams to get more insight into their founding teams, their mission, their progress so far.

1. Harmony Baby Nutrition

Founding date: 2018

Founder: Wendel de Oliveira Afonso (CEO)

Headquarters: Boston, U.S. 

Harmony Baby Nutrition is a food tech started in MIT developing baby formulas that contain human breast milk proteins instead of cow’s dairy milk. Using the same recombinant DNA technology that the pharmaceutical industry has been using to develop protein-based medical drugs, Harmony is developing recombinant breast milk proteins as the base for infant formula, which it says is safer, more nutritious and more sustainable than using animal-based dairy ingredients. Currently still under R&D, the startup will be ready to scale and begin their FDA approval process in six months.

Harmony – saving and improving babies lives around the world.

Wendel de Oliveira Afonso, Founder & CEO, Harmony

2. KYF

Founding date: 2020

Founders: Renata Lopes (COO) & Katja Douedari (CEO)

Headquarters: New York, U.S.

KYF, which stands for Know Your Food, is a startup producing plant-based, frozen fast-food alternatives for children, designed with a “marketing-first approach” that targets this tech native generation. From nuggets to mini burgers and hot dogs, the company makes it easier for parents to get their kids to eat healthier 100% plant-based meals without sacrificing on convenience and taste.

Our mission is to create healthy, safe, tasty and convenient plant-based foods that kids choose to eat on their own, and parents love to have at home for them.

Renata Lopes & Katja Douedari, Co-Founders, KYF

3. More Foods

Founding date: 2019

Founder: Leonardo Marcovitz (CEO)

Headquarters: Tel Aviv, Israel

More Foods is a plant-based company on a mission to create delicious alternatives to eliminate meat from the supply chain, starting off with plant-based beef. The product, called “More Beef” is billed as a “perfect cut of beef” that is completely vegan-friendly, free from artificial ingredients and a source of fibre, and is healthier and more sustainable than its traditional counterparts. 

The world now realises the horrible consequences of animal farming. More Food’s mission is to create novel and tasty alternatives that make it easy for people to replace meat in their meals.

Leonardo Marcovitz, Founder & CEO, More Foods

4. Raging Pig

Founding date: 2020

Founders: Adam Mikkelsen (CEO) & Eric Calderon (CMO)

Headquarters: Malmö, Sweden

Raging Pig is a Swedish food tech that knows how to solve one thing that many plant-based folk miss dearly – the flavour of delicious bacon. They’ve come up with a 100% vegan bacon seasoning that contains natural flavourings and ingredients, and is allergen-free, cruelty-free, soy-free and GMO-free. The shelf-stable product has proved a huge hit, with its first batch already sold out.

Raging Pig goes beyond providing vegan bacon deliciousness. We’re set out to build a lifestyle brand, hacking our way into pop culture in order to help normalise plant-based on a global scale.

Adam Mikkelsen & Eric Calderon, Co-Founders, Raging Pig

5. Rainfed Foods

Founding date: 2020

Founders: Sujala Balaji (CEO)

Headquarters: Toronto, Canada

Rainfed Foods is developing products that are “indistinguishable from dairy” using plants, with nutrition, taste and sustainability in mind. Their first product is vegan milk alternative made using millet, one of the most sustainable future food crops. 

Reimagining dairy of the future using regenerative crops to create products with unparalleled taste and nutrition.

Sujala Balaji & Ben Roche, Co-Founders, Rainfed Foods

6. Sova Health

Founding date: 2019

Founders: Tanveer Singh (CEO), Max Kushnir (Chief Scientific Officer) & Rahul Tiwari (CTO)

Headquarters: Gurgaon, Haryana, India

Funding: US$450,000

Sova Health is India’s first precision nutrition platform that offers customers personalised nutrition plans and supplements based on their AI-driven blood analysis. Over the past 15 months, the startup has managed to help their users prevent and manage lifestyle illnesses and diseases through their scientific approach to making food decisions.

Sova Health is a step towards uncomplicating food decisions by using science to cut through misinformation and technology to make this accessible to the larger masses.

Tanveer Singh, Max Kushnir & Rahul Tiwari, Co-Founders, Sova Health

7. CellX

Founding date: 2020

Founders: Ziliang Yang (CEO) & Ran Liu

Headquarters: China

Funding: US$500,000 in pre-seed round, currently raising US$3M

CellX is an early stage cell-based food tech working to develop a cultivated meat platform, with its first products being cultured fish and pork, targeted at the enormous and rising demand from Asian consumers for these two types of animal proteins. So far, the company is actively looking for funding to scale up production and continue its R&D, before bringing their products to market by 2022.

CellX’s mission to create a sustainable and humane future through cellular agriculture.

Ziliang Yang & Ran Liu, Co-Founders, CellX

8. New Singularity

Founding date: 2020

Founder: Li Gao (CEO)

Headquarters: Tianjin, China

New Singularity is a plant-based seafood company based in mainland China. Having recently developed their “1.0” microalgae-based vegan seafood analogues, the startup is now focused on using mycelium fermentation technology to create their second iteration of seafood analogues, slated to be ready for commercialisation by June 2021. 

New Singularity is a biotech company that uses mycelium fermentation as its main technology for plant-based seafood. Our mission is to help reduce overfishing around the world.

Li Gao, Founder & CEO, New Singularity

9. Haofood

Founding date: 2020

Founders: Astrid Prajogo, Professor Shaowei Liu, Jenny Zhu & Kasih Chen

Headquarters: Shanghai, China

Funding: US$325,000 in pre-seed round, currently raising US$2M to scale and launch

Haofood is among the world’s first startups to develop plant-based chicken and other meat alternatives with peanut protein as its primary ingredient. Their first product is a fried plant-based chicken, developed specifically for familiar Asian dishes, such as Chinese street food style fried chicken, chicken katsu and Indonesian specialty ayam geprek. Their ultimate goal is to help flexitarians swap out meat without needing to sacrifice the foods they love. Currently, the startup is in the process of raising more funds to scale-up and launch its product at 300 restaurants and continue R&D for their protein and wet extrusion technology.

Haofood is helping people to reduce meat consumption easily while retains pleasure from comfort food at the same time.

Astrid Prajogo, Founder & CEO, Haofood

Lead image courtesy of More Food.