Cashmere, Washington, U.S.A.-based Beta Hatch has successfully completed a funding round and will begin the process of building out a production facility for growing mealworms to produce insect protein for use in aquafeed.
The new funding round brought in USD 3 million (EUR 2.7 million), increasing the company’s total funding to nearly USD 10 million (EUR 9.1 million), including USD 4.6 million (EUR 4.1 million) in state and federal funding, according to Geekwire. The company was founded in 2015 by entomologist Virginia Emery to develop insect-rearing technology to converts organic waste directly into high-value proteins, oils, and nutrients for poultry and aquaculture.
"Insects have the potential to be the world's most sustainable protein," Beta Hatch Founder and CEO Virginia Emery said in a press release. "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 further bring down costs and increase efficiencies."
The facility to be built in Cashmere, Washington, will be the largest mealworm production facility for animal feed in North America, with the capacity to produce one ton of insect protein per day, the company said. It is scheduled for completion in early 2021, and will be partially powered by waste heat from a neighboring data center.
The most recent funding round was led by Cavallo Ventures, the venture capital arm of Wilbur-Ellis, a maker of agricultural products, animal nutrients, and specialty chemicals and ingredients. It was also funded by early-stage venture firm Innova Memphis, Klein Private Equity Investment, and Brighton Jones Investment Partners.
"A range of markets will benefit from access to a new source of healthy, sustainable alternative feed ingredients," Cavallo Ventures Managing Director Son Vo said. "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."
Innova Memphis Partner Dean Didato his firm was excited by the promise of Beta Hatch’s proprietary technology.
"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," Didato said. "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."
