Bühler, Big Idea Ventures partner to accelerate sustainable protein startups

Bühler and Big Idea Ventures are joining forces to accelerate the success journey of promising startups that are creating alternatives to animal-derived protein products. Big Idea Ventures, the global venture capital fund focused on solving the world’s most significant challenges by supporting the world’s best entrepreneurs, recently launched the New Protein Fund. The Fund will invest in and accelerate up to 100 plant-based and cell-based companies globally. Big Idea Ventures runs four accelerator programs annually in New York and Singapore.

"We are glad to have Bühler join Tyson Ventures, Temasek, and our other strategic investors in the Big Idea Ventures’ New Protein Fund,” said Andrew D. Ive, founder of Big Idea Ventures, in a press release. “Together, we can support the growth of the new generation of leading plant-based companies in North America, Asia, and, ultimately, the planet. Bühler and Big Idea Ventures will work together to build great companies responding to consumer demands for great-tasting food that is good for them and good for the planet.”

“This new partnership benefits from our global network of Food Application Centers across Europe, Asia, and the United States,” said Johannes Wick, CEO of grains and food at Bühler Group, in a press release. “However, it is particularly timely, given that we are opening our Food Application Center in Minneapolis on June 19, introducing new technologies—such as the Filtrex solution—specifically for this sector, and will open our joint innovation facility with Givaudan in Singapore later this year.”

The new Food Application Center in Minneapolis provides a platform for developing new ways to transform peas, beans, corn, pulses, oats, ancient grains, and many other crops into new food solutions such as flours, snacks, pasta, cereals, and a myriad of extruded products, including plant-based meat analogues. The joint Givaudan Bühler innovation facility in Singapore will focus on sustainable protein-based products.