In this podcast series, Alex Shandrovsky interviews investors about benchmarks for funding Alt Proteins in 2026 and uncovers the investment playbooks of successful Climate Tech CEOs and Leading VCs.
Podcast Host Alex Shandrovksy is a strategic advisor to numerous global food tech accelerators and companies, including alternative proteins and cellular agriculture leaders. His focus is on investor relations and post-raise scale for agrifood tech companies. This podcast is syndicated through our media partners, Foodtech Weekly and Vegconomist.
Episode 72: Harmony Baby Nutrition – Del Afonso on Geo-Arbitrage, securing a $6M Brazilian grant, and bypassing the infant formula cartel
In this episode, I sit down with Del Afonso, Founder and CEO of Harmony Baby Nutrition. Del shares his masterclass on “geo-arbitrage”, how he bypassed the exorbitant costs of the Boston biotech bubble by setting up formulation labs in Brazil and analytical labs in Hong Kong, stretching his 18-month runway significantly. We dive into how his team successfully secured a massive $6M non-dilutive grant from the Brazilian Development Agency to build a local manufacturing and R&D hub. Del also explains his bold pivot away from the endless R&D cycle to commercialize their “Generation 1” product via a Direct-to-Consumer (D2C) brand, rather than falling into the B2B ingredient trap with legacy corporations.
Listen to the full episode to hear why powdered formula is fundamentally flawed and how Harmony is raising a $2M bridge round to bring a sterile, liquid alternative to the market.
Key Facts Kost Capital:
- Goal: To revolutionize the $100B infant nutrition industry by creating a sterile, human-breastmilk-based liquid formula that supports gut microbiome health without industrially added sugars.
- Milestone: Secured a $6M grant from the Brazilian Development Agency to build an R&D and manufacturing center, and is currently raising a $2M convertible note to drive the commercial launch of their Gen 1 product in the US.
Alex’s Top Findings:
The Geo-Arbitrage Playbook: Extending Runway with Global R&D. Operating a biotech startup in Cambridge, MA, is prohibitively expensive. Del’s solution was to keep the HQ in the US but offshore the heavy scientific lifting. By utilizing highly qualified PhDs in Brazil and leveraging 70% wage reimbursement programs in Hong Kong, Harmony drastically cut their burn rate. “We grew up on scarcity. Big time… The amount of money we were paying for a senior researcher in the US, we can hire four to five researchers in Brazil. So it’s unbelievable the difference… It’s a strategic way that we can balance a bit of the high cost of doing science within the Boston area.”
Drawing the Line on the “Endless” R&D Cycle. Many deep-tech founders get stuck in the lab perfecting their technology while their runway evaporates. Del realized that to survive the current fundraising winter, they had to draw a hard line in the sand, freeze the “Generation 1” formula, and pivot entirely to commercialization to prove revenue traction before attempting a Series A. “Doing R&D could be like an endless process. And how do you actually get a point, okay, we have enough… I got all the researchers… to say listen, this is the deadline for this… If not, we’re gonna turn on the key, we’re gonna do only the commercial work.”
Value Capture Requires a B2C Brand, Not a B2B Partnership. While selling a patented ingredient to a giant like Nestlé seems like the easier path, it leaves the startup with zero bargaining power. Del emphasizes that in monopolistic industries, the only way to truly capture the value of your innovation is to build your own brand and prove consumer demand directly. “If you really want to position yourself as an ingredient provider… you pretty much have no bargain power when you’re negotiating with those big players. The way that you can showcase what you’re doing and actually capture value is when you hit the market with a product.”
Link to Apple Podcast here.
Catch the full podcast series here.
