Better Origin raises $16m for X1 insect mini-farm to transform the food sector

Cambridge-based Better Origin, which has just raised $16m in a Series A funding round led by Balderton Capital, has developed an astonishing mechanism to put right some of the anomalies in the food chain by recreating sustainable roots – with the help of AI.

Globally, it is estimated that one-third of all food produced is wasted – an estimated 1.3 billion tonnes of biomass goes to waste annually, leading to the release of 4.4 gigatonnes of CO2-equivalent greenhouse gas emissions as it degrades.

Resolving the madness of this production inefficiency – which takes place alongside the fact that 9 per cent of the world’s population (690 million people) go to bed hungry at night – is Better Origin’s mission.

Better Origin was founded in 2018 by Fotis Fotiadis, now CEO, and fellow University of Cambridge graduate Miha Pipan, now CSO. The company has developed the world’s first fully-automated decentralised AI-powered insect mini-farm, the X1, to address the twin challenges of food security and food waste simultaneously, cutting carbon emissions along the way.

Both founders brought deep knowledge and expertise in the sector from their time at Cambridge University studying engineering (Fotis) and biological sciences (Miha) to develop the Better Origin X1 mini-farm, which takes local food waste from supermarkets and converts it into high-quality, sustainable animal feed.

The X1 recreates the conditions found in nature where food is eaten by insects and upcycled into essential nutrients for other animals to grow.

The technology inside the X1 container mimics nature’s natural process of upcycling food waste with the help of insects. The system uses black soldier flies, which are very high in protein and fat, and can grow 5,000 times their initial body mass in less than 14 days.

Using AI and automation to create the optimal environment for this cycle to flourish, Better Origin’s black soldier fly larvae can be fed to the farm’s animals. The larvae are then used to consume food waste – including bruised fruit and vegetables, second-grade grains and industrial food waste – before being harvested after seven to 14 days to create a protein source for animals.

The X1 is fully autonomous, with AI overseeing the larvae’s feeding and growth and no intervention required from the farmer. This makes the technology easy to use by anyone in the world.

In developing this agri-engineering model, the Future Business Centre-based company has removed the need to ship animal feed around the world – the current dominant model – to tackle both the lack of sustainability and the lack of security inherent in global food supply chains.

“The food chain is fundamentally broken and it’s putting the future of our food security at risk,” said CSO and founder Miha Pipan. “We’ve built a solution that aims to finally fix these flaws from the inside out.

“Insect larvae are nature’s mechanism to convert waste back into essential nutrients in the food chain. They act as the missing link between waste and food.

“We reduce waste and increase food production by bringing back this link. We believe our solution is the future of food production and the latest round of funding takes us a step closer to this future.”

The X1 is self-contained and uses AI together with patented engineering processes to replicate the role insects play in the natural food cycle. Its app-based user interface means the farmer always knows exactly what is going on inside the X1 at any given time.

“Farming the insect is proven to be pretty straightforward,” said Fotis. “However, the real value comes from converting the farmed insect into products.

“Over the last three years, we have developed a solution, which can convert the full-grown insect into ingredients for salmon feed, pet feed and human food in a sustainable and scalable way.”

The Series A raise saw participation from Fly Ventures and Metavallon VC as well as Balderton Capital. The inward investment means the company is on the look-out “for brilliant people who share a passion for making the world a better place”.

The funding will be used to recruit in areas including engineering, biology, marketing and operations, as well as product and tech development to help the company achieve scale.

“Beyond enabling us to scale up operations and expand our team, the deep understanding and expertise that Balderton brings makes it the perfect Series A partner,” said CEO Fotis Fotiadis. “It was of vital importance when raising our Series A, as it was when we raised our seed, to find partners that truly believe in our mission and ambition.

“We’re thrilled that Balderton, alongside Fly Ventures and Metavallon VC, are with us as we take this next stage for our company, for our partners and for our planet.”

The team already boasts incredible diversity. The group ranges from Phds in genetics all the way to field engineers and drivers. The common theme in all of them is “the urgency to leave an impact in the world combined with the privilege of working in one of the hardest engineering challenges in agritech”.

There are very few start-ups where so many disciplines combine in order to deliver a product.

Suranga Chandratillake, general partner at Balderton Capital, said: “Fotis, Miha and the Better Origin team are working to fundamentally change our broken food chain, for the benefit of everyone.

“Climate change, the pandemic, political tensions and our growing population have demonstrated time and again how fragile our current systems are.

“They’ve also shown how farming currently exacerbates the challenges we face and solutions so far are not leading to the wholesale change we need. Better Origin presents a new approach and we believe it can have a transformational effect on food and farming systems.”

By producing feed on site, the X1 can produce the same amount of feed currently produced on 1,500sqm of soy plantations, in just 1 sq m.

Each X1 container can help feed 32,000 free range hens and tackle 150 tonnes of food waste a year.

Cameras, computer vision and sensors monitor the conditions within each mini-farm to make sure they are optimal for production.

The resultig plug-and-play product can also be grouped to form networks, making the system and its benefits instantly scalable.

Better Origin’s unique managed and flexible service is a win-win for the environment, for farmers, for the animals, and for consumers.

Although this model can be applied in any food anywhere in the world, the start-up has decided to focus first on the poultry sector and, in December, Better Origin signed a deal to supply 10 insect mini-farms to feed chickens at Morrisons UK free-range egg farms.

The deal is set to save 5,737 tonnes of CO2-eq emissions per year – an equivalent of taking 1,240 cars off the road – while also mitigating 1,500 tonnes of food waste. More partnerships are expected.

The latest funding rounding takes the total amount raised since launch to $19m.