Innovafeed Raises $55M for Sustainable Insect Ingredients

Jan de Vries · 2026-06-05

Innovafeed, a Paris-based BioTech startup that makes functional and sustainable insect-based ingredients for animal nutrition, pet food, and agriculture, just kicked off a new growth phase. They secured about $55 million (converted from EUR 51 million) in funding, mostly from their financial partners. ### Who's Backing the Buzz? The company got a big vote of confidence from its long-time shareholders, including Creadev, QIA, Temasek, FFC, ABC Impact, and ADM, plus its banking partners. They're also wrapping up their industrialization phase and reorganizing around their Nesle site to focus on selling their product lines. ### A Word from the CEO Clément Ray, CEO and cofounder of Innovafeed, shared his vision: "Since day one, we've had two big goals: to prove we can make high-performing, competitive, and sustainable ingredients without overusing marine resources, and to build an innovative industrial project right here in France." He added, "Scaling up our industrial model is a huge milestone. Now we're shifting to commercial deployment, focusing on accelerating value chains for our ingredients and capturing the full value of their functional properties that improve animal health and growth—validated and proven over the last ten years." ### What Makes Their Tech Special? Founded in 2016 by Aude Guo, Bastien Oggeri, and Clément Ray, Innovafeed raises and processes the Black soldier fly (Hermetia illucens) for animal and plant nutrition. They're creating alternatives to fishmeal and vegetable oils used in fish and animal feed. - Their tech mimics the insect's natural cycle on a large scale, using 3,000 sensors to optimize larvae breeding conditions. - AI helps limit human intervention: robots collect and count 20,000 eggs every second. - They use a wet method to process larvae, ensuring high product quality, especially in digestibility. ### Milestones and Momentum Innovafeed's last big funding round was in 2022, when they raised $272 million (converted from EUR 250 million) in Series D, led by Qatar Investment Authority. Since then, they've hit three major milestones: - Their Nesle production unit is fully operational, producing over 33 million pounds (15,000 metric tons) of protein and oil in three years. - Production volumes have increased tenfold, while production costs have dropped sevenfold. - Revenues have doubled each year, thanks to structured partnerships with clients. They also claim a huge environmental win: their products cut carbon emissions by 70 to 90 percent compared to conventional ones, thanks to their circular industrial model. ### What's Next? Now that they've proven their industrial model works, Innovafeed is entering a new growth stage. They're reorganizing to reduce zootechnical R&D and moving those activities from their Gouzeaucourt site to Nesle. That means cutting about 60 positions, with two-thirds affecting the Gouzeaucourt site. Bénédicte Monpert, Food Managing Director at Creadev, said, "Over the past five years, Innovafeed has won its industrial bet. They've built a world-unique asset: a fully operational, large-scale production facility that makes highly optimized ingredients valued by pet food and aquaculture players." In this new phase, the company will redirect its investments toward commercial growth. It's a bold move that shows they're ready to scale up and make insect-based ingredients a mainstream option for sustainable nutrition.