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The Food Tech Playbook: What Actually Scales

The Food Tech Playbook: What Actually Scales

New Wave.

December 5, 202545m 42s

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Show Notes

This week on New Wave Weekly:

๐Ÿ‘‰ Why food & ag still scare generalist VCs

Despite being a $8T industry employing more people than any other, exits are small, timelines are long, and the science is heavy. So why does capital hesitate? And what are they missing?

๐Ÿ‘‰ Where the real opportunities are in food tech

From ingredients with 1% inclusion rates, to functional foods, to GLP-1 alternatives, to sugar-free sweet proteins, which models actually scale in venture timelines?

๐Ÿ‘‰ Food as Medicine: the next multi-billion category?

GLP-1 drugs reshaped consumer behaviorโ€ฆ but can food do the same? We explore peptides, functional mushrooms, sugar replacement, and why nutrition may beat pharma at its own game.

๐Ÿ‘‰ The investment memo for food tech โ€” across stages

What does โ€œgoodโ€ look like at pre-seed? Seed? Growth? Revenue thresholds, market entry strategy, brand vs B2B ingredients, regulatory cycles, and why biotech in food still needs ~15 years and $100M to get to market.

๐Ÿ‘‰ Do brands or ingredients win? The great debate

Lavie, Beyond Meat, Oatly, challenger brands vs. enabling technologies, and why doing โ€œboth biotech AND brandโ€ almost never works.

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Wave Makers:

Nadine - World Fund

Gil - Flora VC

Fabio - Zintinus

Hugo - New Wave



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