Innovafeed Raises $55M for Insect-Based Animal Feed

Jan de Vries · 2026-06-05

Innovafeed, a Paris-based BioTech startup that makes sustainable insect-based ingredients for animal nutrition, pet food, and agriculture, has just secured a $55 million funding round. Most of that cash came from its existing financial partners, marking a big step forward for the company. The money comes from historical shareholders like Creadev, QIA, Temasek, FFC, ABC Impact, and ADM, plus some banking partners. Along with the funding, Innovafeed announced it has finished its industrialization phase and is reorganizing around its Nesle site. The focus now? Commercial development of its product lines. ### What They Do Founded in 2016 by Aude Guo, Bastien Oggeri, and Clement Ray, Innovafeed has built technology to raise and process the Black soldier fly (Hermetia illucens) for animal and plant nutrition. Their ingredients replace things like fishmeal and vegetable oils used in fish and livestock feed. It's a clever way to reduce pressure on ocean resources. The company says its tech can recreate the insect's natural life cycle on a massive scale. They use 3,000 sensors to constantly tweak the larvae's living conditions. AI helps cut down on human involvement, too: robots automatically collect and count the 20,000 eggs laid every second. The goal is to put insects back where they belong in the food chain. Innovafeed also developed a proprietary wet-method process to turn larvae into high-quality ingredients. That process ensures great digestibility, which is key for animal health. ### Big Milestones Innovafeed's last big funding round was in 2022, when it raised $270 million in a Series D led by Qatar Investment Authority. Since then, the company has hit three major milestones: - Its Nesle production unit is fully operational. In three years, it has produced over 16,500 tons of protein and oil. - Production volumes have increased tenfold, while costs dropped by seven times. - Revenues have doubled every year, thanks to structured partnerships with clients. The company also claims its products cut carbon emissions by 70 to 90 percent compared to conventional alternatives, thanks to a circular industrial model. ### A New Phase Now, Innovafeed is entering a new growth stage. That means reorganizing its operations, including scaling back some R&D activities at its Gouzeaucourt site and moving them to Nesle. Around 60 positions will be cut, with about two-thirds of those at Gouzeaucourt. "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," said Benedicte Monpert, Food Managing Director at Creadev. ### What's Next? CEO Clement Ray says the company is now focused on commercial deployment. "The successful scale-up of our industrial model marks a major milestone for Innovafeed today and opens up a new phase of commercial deployment," he said. The company aims to accelerate development of value chains for its ingredients, capturing their full functional properties that improve animal health and growth. It's a bold vision: proving that sustainable, high-performance ingredients can be made without overfishing the oceans. And with this new funding, Innovafeed is betting big on insects being the future of feed.