Innovafeed Raises $55M to Scale Insect-Based Feed Ingredients

Jan de Vries · 2026-06-05

Innovafeed, a Paris-based biotech startup that produces functional and sustainable insect-based ingredients for animal nutrition, pet food, and agriculture, has entered a new development phase with a $55 million funding round from its financial partners. The company got backing from its historical shareholders, including Creadev, QIA, Temasek, FFC, ABC Impact, and ADM, plus its banking partners. It also announced the completion of its industrialization phase and a reorganization around its Nesle site, now focused on commercial growth. ### What This Funding Means for Innovafeed Clément Ray, CEO and cofounder of Innovafeed, said: "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: "The successful scale-up of our industrial model marks a major milestone for Innovafeed today and opens up a new phase of commercial deployment. Innovafeed is now focusing its efforts on accelerating the development of value chains for its ingredients, capturing the full value of their multiple functional properties improving animal health and growth, which have been validated and proven for ten years now."  ### How Innovafeed's Technology Works Founded in 2016 by Aude Guo, Bastien Oggeri, and Clément Ray, Innovafeed developed a technology to rear and transform the black soldier fly (Hermetia illucens) for animal and plant nutrition. This offers an alternative to fishmeal and vegetable oils used in fish and animal feed. The company says its unique tech can reproduce the insect's natural cycle on a large scale under controlled conditions. It uses 3,000 sensors to constantly optimize larvae breeding conditions. AI helps limit human intervention: robots automatically collect and count the 20,000 eggs laid every second. Innovafeed wants to put insects back at the heart of the food chain. Innovafeed also created a proprietary wet-method process that transforms larvae while ensuring high product quality, especially in digestibility. ### Key Milestones Since the Last Funding Round The company's last funding round was in 2022, when it raised $273 million in a Series D led by Qatar Investment Authority (QIA). Since then, it hit three major milestones: - Its Nesle production unit is now fully operational. In three years, it produced over 15,000 tons of protein and oil. - Production volumes increased tenfold, while production costs dropped by seven times. - Revenues have doubled each year, driven by structured partnerships with clients. The company also claims strong environmental impact: its products deliver a 70-90% reduction in carbon emissions compared to conventional ones. ### What's Next for Innovafeed After reaching key operational maturity in R&D and industrial development, Innovafeed is entering a new growth stage. It's reorganizing activities: reducing zootechnical R&D and integrating them from its historical Gouzeaucourt site into the Nesle facility. A project to cut 60 positions is planned, 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 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 new phase, the company will redirect investments toward commercial deployment and scaling its product ranges. This is a smart move for a startup that's proven its tech can work at industrial scale. Now it's about getting those insect-based ingredients into more feed bags and pet food bowls around the world.