FreezeM—an Israeli startup seeking to disrupt the insect farming segment with a breeding-as-a-service model that decouples black soldier fly breeding from large-scale protein production—has raised a $14.2m series A round. The round was led by an undisclosed group of “industrial investors” and the European Innovation Council Fund (EIC Fund), along with FreezeM’s existing investors and partners, and will help the firm build a hub of breeding facilities to supply insect farmers in different regions.
Decoupling breeding from rearing and processing
Right now, as in many immature industries, said FreezeM cofounder and CEO Dr. Yuval Gilad, insect farmers are often doing everything themselves, combining breeding, farming, and in some cases processing, on one site.
While this vertically integrated model might seem efficient, insect breeding and rearing require very different skills, claimed Gilad, who founded FreezeM in 2018 as a spin-off from the Weizmann Institute of Science with Dr. Yoav Politi (VP, R&D) and Dr. Idan Alyagor (CTO).
“If you look at other established agricultural fields, they are segmented because as the industry matures, you need to have specialization in each part of the supply chain. Insect breeding requires knowledge of entomology, biology, and biotechnology. The same applies to [other forms of] farming where you have companies that specialize in breeding, genetics, and seeds, and then companies focused on farming.
Read more at agfundernews.com