Innovafeed Raises $54M for Sustainable Insect Ingredients

Jan de Vries · 2026-06-05

Innovafeed, a Paris-based biotech startup, just landed about $54 million to scale its sustainable insect-based ingredients for animal feed, pet food, and agriculture. This fresh funding marks a big shift into commercial growth after years of R&D and industrial scaling. ### What's the Money For? The company got backing from its longtime shareholders like Creadev, QIA, Temasek, FFC, ABC Impact, and ADM, plus some banking partners. They're using it to wrap up their industrialization phase and reorganize around their main site in Nesle, France. Now, it's all about selling their products at scale. CEO and cofounder Clément Ray put it simply: "Since day one, we've wanted to prove we can make high-performing, competitive, sustainable ingredients without trashing marine resources, and that you can build an innovative industrial project in France." He added, "Our industrial model is scaled up, and now we're focusing on commercial deployment and capturing the full value of our ingredients' functional properties for animal health and growth."  ### The Tech Behind the Magic Founded in 2016 by Aude Guo, Bastien Oggeri, and Clément Ray, Innovafeed raises and processes black soldier flies (Hermetia illucens) into protein and oil products. These replace fishmeal and vegetable oils in fish and animal feed. Their secret? A high-tech system that mimics the insect's natural lifecycle at scale. They use 3,000 sensors to constantly tweak larvae growing conditions, plus AI to cut down human work. Robots automatically collect and count the 20,000 eggs laid every second. The goal: put insects back at the center of the food chain. They also developed a proprietary wet-method process to turn larvae into high-quality ingredients, especially when it comes to digestibility. ### Big Milestones Since 2022 Innovafeed's last major funding was in 2022, when they raised about $270 million in a Series D led by Qatar Investment Authority. Since then, they've hit three big marks: - Their Nesle production unit is fully up and running. In three years, they've made over 16,500 tons of protein and oil. - Production volumes jumped 10x, while costs dropped sevenfold. - Revenues doubled every year, thanks to solid client partnerships. - Their products cut carbon emissions by 70–90% compared to conventional ones, thanks to a circular industrial model. ### A New Phase, With Some Tough Choices Now, Innovafeed is reorganizing. They're moving zootechnical R&D from their old Gouzeaucourt site to Nesle. That means cutting about 60 jobs, with two-thirds of those at Gouzeaucourt. It's a hard step, but they say it's necessary to focus on commercial growth. Bénédicte Monpert, Food Managing Director at Creadev, said, "Over the past five years, Innovafeed has won its industrial bet and built a world-unique asset: a fully operational, large-scale facility that produces highly optimized ingredients valued by pet food and aquaculture players." Looking ahead, the company will redirect its investments toward sales, marketing, and product development. They're betting that their proven technology and growing market demand will fuel the next stage of growth. It's a bold move, but with $54 million in fresh capital and a decade of R&D behind them, Innovafeed seems ready to make insect-based feed a mainstream reality.