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Beta Hatch develops insect-rearing technology that converts organic waste directly into high-value proteins, oils, and nutrients for poultry and aquaculture, enabling insects to cost-effectively meet the global scale of demand for plant and animal nutrients
Fremont, CA: Insect rearing technology firm Beta Hatch closed its Series A1 funding round co-led by Cavallo Ventures, Wilbur-Ellis' venture capital arm, and early-stage venture firm Innova Memphis. The investment round was also participated by Klein Private Equity Investment and Brighton Jones Investment Partners. Beta Hatch develops insect-rearing technology that converts organic waste directly into high-value proteins, oils, and nutrients for poultry and aquaculture, enabling insects to cost-effectively meet the global scale of demand for plant and animal nutrients.
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"Insects have the potential to be the world's most sustainable protein," said Virginia Emery, founder, and CEO, Beta Hatch. "This new funding allows us to break ground on the construction of our sustainable flagship facility so that we can scale up production commercially to meet existing demand of thousands of tons, and to continue our technology development to bring down costs further and increase efficiencies."
[vendor_logo_first]The company's new flagship facility in Cashmere, Washington, is set to be the largest mealworm production facility for animal feed in North America, producing a ton of insect protein per day. The facility is scheduled to be operational by 2021 and will be partially powered by waste heat from a nearby data center to reduce electrical needs. "A range of markets will benefit from access to a new source of healthy, sustainable alternative feed ingredients," said Cavallo Ventures' Managing Director, Son Vo. "This financing supports an essential next step toward commercialization, which will enable Beta Hatch to meet these markets' needs while offering an innovative way to produce feed for our food, starting with aquaculture."
Beta Hatch recently completed the first published assembly of the yellow mealworm genome. The genome will be published as part of an open-source article in the Journal of Insects as Food and Feed in Summer 2020. It will serve as an essential resource for the scientific community in furthering research on the mealworm and other commercially relevant insect species.
"Whether for aquaculture, poultry, or even for use in the domestic pet marketplace, we clearly see the opportunity posed by Beta Hatch in addressing the need for more sustainable sources of feed protein," said Dean Didato, Partner, Innova Memphis. "The Beta Hatch team has engineered several innovative solutions to increase insect growth and mechanical processing efficiencies that provide a competitive edge in the space. In addition, with consumer desires to know more about the origin of one's food and its rearing, harvesting, and processing, Innova fully believes that these trends will drive further market adoption of insect protein."
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