In this podcast series, Alex Shandrovsky interviews investors about benchmarks for funding Alt Proteins in 2025 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 32: Catchfree
In this episode, I spoke with Severin Eder, co-founder of Catchfree, a Swiss startup developing plant-based seafood alternatives. Severin shares the story behind their recent 1.2M CHF seed round, why they’ve taken a B2B-first approach, and how they’re scaling without patents—using trade secrets, chef-led validation, and investor relationships rooted in regional support. We unpack startup lessons around cap table alignment, food-tech fundraising in today’s market, and how Catchfree built momentum by letting their product—and not just their pitch—do the talking.
Key Facts Catchfree:
- Goal: To craft plant-only seafood without harming nature.
- Recently raised a 1.2M CHF seed round co-led by FortyOne Group and Stiftung Startfelt.
Alex’s Top Findings:
- Smart Capital Through Regional Foundations and Strategic Angels. The seed round (CHF 1.2M) was raised through a regional foundation (Stiftung Startfeld) and private equity group (FortyOne Group), not traditional VCs. “ There was an event that this foundation regularly holds where you could pitch your startup in front of investors. What was great for us was that we not only had the chance to describe our vision in a pitch, but also let the investors experience it. Catchfree products during a tasting afterwards. As they say, the way to the heart is through the stomach. This also applies to the success of selling food innovation. We met our lead investor during one of these events. “
- Avoiding IP Pitfalls: Trade Secrets Over Patents. The team opted for trade secrets instead of early patent filings to retain flexibility, reduce cost, and avoid public disclosures until commercialization. “ We work a lot with trade secrets at the beginning, and we have changed our recipes a lot and considerably over the last three years. Our company was founded in mid-2024, and since then, our whole recipe approach has been. Even our product portfolio has all evolved and pivoted a little bit based on the market insights. I would say in food tech, in the sense that you work a lot with recipe development, you work a lot with trade secrets, and the recipe we have right now is completely different from what was done back at the time. Even the products we are working on right now, or the products that we are gonna launch now, were not even in the ideation back at the time.”
- Objection Handling: Taste First, Tech Second. Skepticism about consumer adoption and scalability was overcome through relentless tastings (~70) and clear scale-up roadmaps. “When you have a physical product, people want to experience it — and it’s your greatest asset. We outlined a valid technological roadmap… and projections to reach price parity.”
Link to Apple Podcast here.
Catch the full podcast series here.
