Moa Foodtech and six other of the most exciting startups in the pet care sector will partner with Purina after being selected by its innovation accelerator Unleashed.
Since its founding in 2020, the startup has won numerous awards and raised €1.5 million in funding rounds thanks to its innovative product.
The Navarre startup Moa foodtech has been one of six companies from around the world selected in the Unleashed 2022 program, the only innovation accelerator specializing in pet care, which aims to accelerate the growth of companies with innovative products and services for the industry.
The Navarre-based company has been awarded for its innovative solutions, which combine biotechnology and artificial intelligence to transform by-products from the agri-food industry into sustainable, high-value ingredients. Using fermentation techniques, MOA generates sustainable alternative proteins for pet food, while exploring new agri-food by-products as avenues for more products and ingredients.
The six winners of Unleashed 2022 have been chosen from more than 150 applicants from 28 different countries. The Unleashed 2022 program, Europe’s first and only pet care program, aims to “drive the growth of participants by supporting the development of innovative new products and services”.
About MOA foodtech
MOA foodtech is a company founded in 2020 and based in Pamplona that was founded to provide alternative solutions to the current model of food production, which currently causes 24% of greenhouse gases and 80% of deforestation.
To achieve their goal, they collect waste and by-products from the agricultural industry. Subsequently, they transform these raw materials into a high-value protein ingredient that they introduce back into the industry and society with a proprietary fermentation process. In their trajectory, they have managed to develop a 100% sustainable ingredient and process thanks to the raw materials they use and have developed a state-of-the-art protein due to its high nutritional profile.
Thanks to their proposal, they have won several awards. Last year they were selected to participate in Good Food Makers, an innovation program organized by the accelerators KitchenTown and Blu1877, for a collaborative project with Barilla, a world leader in the pasta market, to study the potential of the multinational’s by-products as fermentation substrates.
In October 2021, they raised 1.5 million euros in a seed investment round, led by Viscofan and Clave Capital, with the aim of scaling up their production of sustainable proteins for food and gaining presence in Asia and America. They are currently working on developing foods using this ingredient in the dairy, meat and snacks sectors, among others. As far as R&D is concerned, last year MOA Foodtech obtained nearly €400,000 in grants for the development of new technologies.
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