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 feed, pet food, and plant nutrition, just closed a $55 million funding round. Most of the cash came from existing financial partners, signaling strong confidence in their technology. The company's backers include historical shareholders like Creadev, QIA, Temasek, FFC, ABC Impact, and ADM, plus banking partners. Alongside the funding, Innovafeed announced it has wrapped up its industrialization phase and is reorganizing around its Nesle production site. The focus now? Commercial growth and getting products into more markets. ### A Decade of Validation Pays Off Clément Ray, CEO and cofounder, shared why this moment matters. “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.” He added that scaling up the industrial model is a major milestone. Now, the company is zeroing in on commercial deployment—building value chains for its ingredients and proving their functional benefits for animal health and growth, which have been validated for ten years.  ### How It Works: Black Soldier Flies and AI Founded in 2016 by Aude Guo, Bastien Oggeri, and Clément Ray, Innovafeed raises and processes black soldier flies (Hermetia illucens) into protein and oil. These ingredients replace fishmeal and vegetable oils in feed for fish, livestock, and pets. What sets them apart is their tech. The company uses 3,000 sensors to monitor larvae conditions constantly. AI helps limit human intervention—robots automatically collect and count the 20,000 eggs laid every second. The goal is to put insects back at the center of the food chain, mimicking nature’s cycle on a massive scale. They also use a proprietary wet processing method that keeps product quality high, especially when it comes to digestibility.  ### From Series D to Operational Maturity Innovafeed’s last big funding round was in 2022—a $270 million Series D led by Qatar Investment Authority. Since then, they’ve hit three major milestones: - Their Nesle production unit is fully operational. In three years, they’ve produced over 33 million pounds of protein and oil. - Production volumes have increased tenfold, while costs dropped by a factor of seven. - Revenue has doubled every year, thanks to structured partnerships with customers. The company also claims a big environmental win: its products cut carbon emissions by 70 to 90 percent compared to conventional alternatives, thanks to a circular industrial model. ### Restructuring for the Next Phase With operational maturity under its belt, Innovafeed is entering a new growth stage. That means reorganizing. They’re moving zootechnical R&D from their historical Gouzeaucourt site to Nesle, which will lead to about 60 job cuts—two-thirds of them at Gouzeaucourt. Bénédicte Monpert, Food Managing Director at Creadev, summed it up: “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.” Now, the company is redirecting investment toward commercial growth and capturing the full value of its ingredients. For a startup that started with a bold idea—replacing fishmeal with fly larvae—Innovafeed is proving that sustainable nutrition can scale.