In this podcast series, Alex Shandrovsky interviews investors about benchmarks for funding alt proteins in 2024 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.
Episode 16: B’ZEOS
In this episode, Guy shared the journey of B’ZEOS, a company redefining sustainability by replacing single-use plastics with a game-changing solution. We explore how B’ZEOS strategically leveraged public funding from Norway and the EU to develop its technology without early dilution—setting the stage for a successful €5M funding round led by impact-driven investors like Faber.
From securing paid pilots to building strong investor relationships, this story is packed with insights on scaling a sustainable startup the smart way. Stay tuned to learn how innovation meets impact!
Key Facts B’ZEOS:
- Goal: To address central challenges in the Blue Bioeconomy related to the sustainable utilization of marine biomass and developing competitive bio-based products for value creation.
- Recently raised €5M led by Faber.
Alex’s Top Findings:
- Phased Fundraising Strategy. B’ZEOS utilized non-dilutive public funding initially, followed by strategic venture capital when ready to scale. “ Before 2024, everything was either public money from different grants that we got or was from services, paid services. When you get public money, you need to tap, so you receive up to 70% of that amount, and you need to tap with 30% on the top.” Guy shared.
- Effective Outreach Requires Clear and Simplified Communication. “We needed to sell ourselves, which was not that simple initially. We worked together to make a deep dive deck. A model that we had not on the strategy, but on turning or on making numbers on our strategy or making investors understand our model basically.”
- Due Diligence Requires Streamlining Processes and Transparency. “We thought we were clean, but it’s never clean enough. Cleaning up meant organizing IPs registered across different countries and structuring the company for investor confidence.” Guy said.
Link to Apple Podcast here.
Catch the full podcast series here.
