Innovafeed Raises $54M for Insect-Based Ingredients

Jan de Vries · 2026-06-05

Innovafeed, a Paris-based biotech company, just scored about $54 million to scale its sustainable insect-based ingredients for animal feed, pet food, and agriculture. This funding marks a big step forward, and it's mostly from their existing financial partners. The company got support from long-time investors like Creadev, QIA, Temasek, FFC, ABC Impact, and ADM, plus their banking partners. They're now done with the industrialization phase and are reorganizing around their Nesle facility to focus on selling their product lines. ### What Innovafeed Actually Does Clément Ray, CEO and co-founder, said, "Since day one, we have carried a dual ambition: to demonstrate that we can produce high-performing, competitive, and sustainable ingredients for nutrition without relying on the intensive exploitation of marine resources; and that it is possible to build an innovative industrial project in France." Founded in 2016 by Aude Guo, Bastien Oggeri, and Clément Ray, Innovafeed raises and processes black soldier fly larvae. They use these insects to create protein and oil that can replace fishmeal and vegetable oils in feed for fish, pets, and even plants.  ### The Tech Behind the Bugs Their secret sauce is a system that mimics the insect's natural life cycle on a massive scale. They use 3,000 sensors to keep the larvae happy and healthy, and AI to handle the boring stuff. Robots collect and count the 20,000 eggs laid every second. That's a lot of eggs. They also use a wet processing method that keeps the final product high quality and easy to digest. The goal? Put insects back where they belong in the food chain. ### How They've Grown The last big round was in 2022, when they raised about $270 million in Series D funding led by Qatar Investment Authority. Since then, they've hit three major milestones: - Their Nesle factory is fully up and running, producing over 15,000 tons of protein and oil in three years. - Production volumes have jumped tenfold, while costs dropped by a factor of seven. - Revenues have doubled every year, thanks to solid partnerships with customers. They also claim their products cut carbon emissions by 70 to 90 percent compared to traditional ones, thanks to a circular, symbiotic model. ### What's Next Now that the R&D and industrial phase is mature, Innovafeed is shifting gears. They're reorganizing, moving some research from their Gouzeaucourt site to Nesle, and planning to cut about 60 jobs, mostly at Gouzeaucourt. Bénédicte Monpert from Creadev said, "Over the past five years, Innovafeed has won its industrial bet and developed a world-unique asset: a fully operational large-scale production facility that enables highly optimised production of ingredients with functional properties that are valued by pet food and aquaculture players." In this next phase, the company will focus on commercial growth, getting their ingredients into more products and proving their value in the market. It's a big shift from building to selling, but they've got the technology and the team to make it work.