Innovafeed Raises $54M to Scale Insect-Based Feed Ingredients

Jan de Vries · 2026-06-05

Innovafeed, a Paris-based biotech company, just took a big step forward. The startup, which makes sustainable insect-based ingredients for animal feed, pet food, and agriculture, has secured about $54 million in new funding. Most of this money comes from its existing financial partners. This cash injection marks the end of Innovafeed's industrialization phase. The company is now reorganizing around its main production site in Nesle, France. The focus? Commercial growth and getting its product lines into more markets. ### What Innovafeed Actually Does Founded in 2016 by Aude Guo, Bastien Oggeri, and Clement Ray, Innovafeed raises black soldier flies on a massive scale. The company then turns these insects into protein and oil for fish, pets, and plants. Think of it as an alternative to fishmeal and vegetable oils that dominate the animal feed industry today. Here's the cool part: their facility uses about 3,000 sensors to track every aspect of the larvae's environment. AI helps manage the whole process, with robots collecting and counting the 20,000 eggs laid every second. That's a lot of eggs. ### The Numbers Behind the Hype Innovafeed's last big raise was in 2022, when it pulled in about $272 million in a Series D round led by Qatar Investment Authority. Since then, the company has hit some serious milestones: - Its Nesle production unit is fully up and running - Over the past three years, it has produced more than 15,000 tons of protein and oil - Production volumes have increased tenfold - Production costs have dropped by seven times - Revenue has doubled every single year Those are impressive stats for any startup, let alone one in the relatively niche insect-farming space. ### A Word From the CEO "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," said Clement Ray, CEO and cofounder. He added that the successful scale-up of their industrial model opens a new phase focused on commercial deployment. The company is now working to capture the full value of its ingredients' functional properties, which have been validated over the past decade. ### Environmental Impact and Efficiency Innovafeed claims its products deliver a 70 to 90 percent reduction in carbon emissions compared to conventional feed ingredients. That's largely due to the circular nature of its production model. The company uses a wet processing method for transforming larvae, which keeps product quality high, especially when it comes to digestibility. ### What's Next for Innovafeed The company is entering a new growth phase, but it's not all smooth sailing. As part of the reorganization, Innovafeed plans to cut about 60 positions. Two-thirds of those cuts will hit its historical Gouzeaucourt site. The company is also moving its zootechnical R&D activities from Gouzeaucourt to the Nesle facility. Benedicte Monpert, Food Managing Director at Creadev, summed it up well: "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 its next phase, Innovafeed will redirect its investments toward commercial growth and product development. The insect-based feed market is still young, but this company is positioning itself as a leader. Whether it can maintain that momentum while managing the transition to full commercial scale remains to be seen. But for now, the future looks promising for this Parisian startup.