LIVIN farms secures €6 million Series A investment to turn food waste into valuable protein

Vienna based start-up, LIVIN Farms, has raised a €6 Million Series A round led by Venture Investor Peter Luerssen. LIVIN Farms is an industrial technology provider in the alternative protein industry. It has developed HIVE PRO, a unique, highly scalable and modular system for fully automated insect processing. HIVE PRO empowers waste management companies and large-scale food producers to upcycle organic waste and by-products into valuable proteins, fats and fertilizers.

The HIVE PRO is designed to be implemented at the customer’s site, where organic waste and by-products originate and are used as insect feed. The complete process, from insect rearing to robotic insect handling and end product processing, is fully automated. The HIVE PRO technology is complemented by the LIVIN farm’s unique ‘Farming as a Service’ (FaaS) model, whereby HIVE PROs are remotely monitored and automatically replenished with insect seedlings once a life-cycle process is completed.

Customers can think of HIVE PRO as an independent plug-and-play factory, within their factory, which is as easy to use as it gets. In Vienna, Austria, LIVIN farms has recently opened a fully up-and-running 1,400m2 pilot site where the HIVE PRO is demonstrated to interested customers.

“With our proprietary technology and biological know-how, our customers turn substantial losses on organic waste into highly attractive, additional income," explained  Katharina Unger, Founder and CEO of LIVIN Farms. "At the same time, our customers contribute massively to fixing the broken food system and therefore saving the planet."

"The LIVIN Farms' insect factories are an important step towards a circular economy, where technology enables resource-efficient and truly scalable production processes," added Markus Krischmann, Managing Director of Seed Investor Elevation Investments.

LIVIN Farms has previously secured a Seed investment round, grants and subsidies from Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG), Austrian Promotional Bank (AWS) and the European Innovation Council (EIC) under the European Green Deal, totaling more than €4 million altogether. This Series A investment of €6 million fuels further growth of the company and will be used for expanding the LIVIN farms team, standardization of the technical solutions and driving the initial scale-up phase.

“LIVIN farms is on a mission to revolutionize the upcycling of organic waste through their modular and automated insect factories and they are poised to become a major player in this fast growing industry,” commented Peter Luerssen, Series A lead investor.

“Taking previously discarded waste and turning it into high-value protein not only opens up new revenue streams for customers, but is a huge win for planetary health,” suggested Duncan Turner, General Partner of SOSV’s HAX.

Around two billion more people will populate the planet by 2050 and global demand for protein will exceed production capabilities by far. Insect proteins, taking substantially less space and resources, are a major element of the solution. LIVIN farms not only contributes to fixing the broken food system and generates new revenue streams for its customers but overall massively cuts carbon emissions associated with the protein production process. A true win-win-win situation for LIVIN farms, its customers, and the planet.