🏟️ Introducing the 36 Food Tech World Cup Semi Finalists

Over 100 Startups spanning 20 countries applied to take part in the 2025 edition of the FoodTech World Cup. 

In collaboration with Givaudan and Nestlé Research and Development Lausanne, we are hosting a global competition to spotlight new and rising talents working in Food for Health.

We’re about to take you on a round the world tour to reveal the 36 startups who over the coming weeks will pitch to a regional Jury of investors and corporates in the Semi Finals. 

Next up: Startups from each region will be selected to compete in the FoodTech World Cup Final, at the HackSummit, where a winner will be crowned.

36 FoodTech World Cup Semi Finalists

APAC

🇸🇬 Coa&Co

CEO: Eduardo Burg Mlynarz
Focus: Longevity
What: The key to a longer & healthier life? Better daily pleasures. Coa reimagines chocolate's healthful origins, with the world’s first chocolate fortified through fermentation and the first high-protein chocolate brand from Asia.

🇸🇬 Fattastic Technologies 

CEO: Satnam Singh
Focus: Personalised Nutrition
What: Fattastic Fat is transforming the fat industry with our innovative technology, offering a healthier, tastier, and more sustainable alternative to conventional fats like palm oil and coconut oil.

🇦🇺 Just Meat Protein

CEO: Aarti Tobin
Focus: Personalised Nutrition
What: Just Meat is a B2B ingredients company that uses a novel enzymatic hydrolysis process to transform low value cuts of meat into high value functional protein powders which can be added to any food or beverage that needs a protein or nutritional boost 

🇳🇿 Mara Bio

CEO: Mark Balchin
Focus: Gut Health
What: Mara Bio is re-imagining how energy and nutrient rich food production side streams are handled by giving them a new life in the form of protein, fibre and trace mineral rich functional ingredients and bioactives for food & nutraceutical applications.

🇮🇳 Millets Now

CEO: Vidhya Parshuramkar
Focus: Immunity
What: Millets Now is a multiple award-winning social enterprise working to address malnutrition and micronutrient deficiencies among Indian children by providing affordable nutrition through a range of millets-based products that are exclusively distributed by women- a deliberate empowerment approach for financial inclusion to tackle poverty.

Europe

🇩🇰 Clutch Nutrition ApS

CEO: Rune Rønhave Laursen
Focus: Glucose Management
What: Clutch Nutrition was founded by a molecular biologist, a doctor and a nutrition scientist to counteract some of the most severe health challenges globally, in particular overweight and diabetes. Their patented solution offers an alternative to the only two types of soft drinks that currently exist, namely those based on quickly digestible sugars and those based on artificial sweeteners.

🇪🇸 Genbioma

CEO: Josune Ayo
Focus: Glucose Management
What: Genbioma enhances metabolic health through microbiome science with postbiotics to prevent glucose metabolic disorders and improve human health.

🇫🇮 Gova

CEO: Nasib Naseri
Focus: Glucose Management
What: Gova develops clean encapsulation technology for mass production, using only water-based processes to reduce sugar’s calories by up to 90% while preserving its natural taste and texture. 

🇸🇪 Ironic Biotech

CEO: Nélida Leiva Eriksson
Focus: Energy Levels
What: Ironic Biotech is dedicated to combating iron deficiency, which is the most common nutritional deficiency globally, by developing a unique and non-toxic iron ingredient. 

🇩🇪 Koralo

CEO: Sina Albanese
Focus: Gut Health
What: Koralo creates functional food and feed enriching health and beauty. With patented co-fermentation of microalgae and mushroom roots, Koralo is setting a new standard in delicious taste, functional nutrition, and affordable scalability.

🇬🇧 Kyomei

CEO: Meir Wachs
Focus: Glucose Management
What: Kyomei's biotech-enabled platform integrates genetics with protein extraction, transforming crop leaf waste into bio-factories for healthy food ingredients, starting with Rubisco (a cleaner and/or more scalable alternative to many functional ingredients) and Brazzein (a sweet protein that provides natural, zero-calorie sweetness with no impact on blood sugar levels). 

🇬🇧 Microlub

CEO: David Peters
Focus: Weight Management
What: MicroLub has developed a proprietary, patented technology, using plant-based proteins, that enables its customers to replace fats and oils with water by mimicking the mouthfeel and texture of fat. 

🇮🇹 Nous Energy 

CEO: Lorenzo Pessini
Focus: Energy Levels
What: Nous Energy has developed Koncentra, a caffeine alternative ingredient, offering same benefits of caffeine, no drawbacks, while offering gastrointestinal benefits and being more sustainable. 

🇫🇮 Perfat Technologies

CEO: Jyrki Lee-Korhonen
Focus: Longevity
What: Healthy fats fortified with dietary fibers to replace conventional unhealthy solid fats such as palm oil, coconut oil and butter.

Latin America

🇧🇷 Horta da Terra

CEO: Bruno Kato
Focus: Longevity
What: Horta da Terra is a Nature Tech agro-industrial company specializing in Amazonian regenerative ingredients, cultivating Unconventional Edible Plants (PANCs) through syntropic practices.

🇦🇷 Kresko RNAtech

CEO: Silvana Spinelli
Focus: Longevity
What: Kresko is a biotech company pioneering dietary RNA ingredients to naturally boost cellular function and help consumers regain the full benefits of fresh foods.

🇪🇨 Livekuna

CEO: Carlos Gutierrez
Focus: Gut Health
What: Revolutionising sweetness, Banana Sugar is the first prebiotic sweetener made from upcycled bananas—designed to fuel your gut, stabilize blood sugar, and redefine how we indulge. Ditch the empty sugars and upgrade to a smarter, functional sweetener that’s better for you and the planet.

🇦🇷 FutureBiome

CEO: Martin larre
Focus: Gut Health
What: Future Biome focuses on optimizing the microbiome function with the best nutrition: Precision prebiotics.

🇧🇷 Sante Science

CEO: Marcela Camargo
Focus: Immunity
What: Sante Science has developed an innovative biotechnology through upcycling to produce natural ingredients that enhance treatment and reduce the symptoms of oncological chemotherapy in pets and humans, increasing quality of life, longevity, gastrointestinal and immunological health.

🇺🇾 Yeda

CEO: Fernando Slamovitz
Focus: Glucose Management
What: Yeda is an AI-first personalised nutrition startup that leverages gut microbiome insights to predict individual glycemic responses, helping users prevent sudden glucose fluctuations to optimise metabolic health.

North America

🇺🇸 50CUT

CEO: Shalom Daniel
Focus: Longevity
What: Producing 50CUT Meat & Poultry products and selling them as ingredients to the B2B industrial meat processors and foodservice market.

🇺🇸 Akarso Bio

CEO: Anne Palermo
Focus: Weight Management
What: Akarso Bio is developing a proprietary ingredient platform that naturally stimulates GLP-1 release to enhance satiety and support weight management, combining insoluble fiber with bioactives for scalable B2B applications in food and nutrition.

🇺🇸 Antithesis Foods

CEO: Jason Goodman
Focus: Weight Management

What: Antithesis makes healthy snacks based on patent-pending food science funded by the National Science Foundation for the private label industry. They’re in 5,000 doors with CVS, sell the healthiest protein crackers with a D2C brand, and will launch seven products with a national grocer in September. 

🇺🇸 Ayana Bio

CEO: Frank Jaksch
Focus: Personalised Nutrition
What: At Ayana Bio we grow plants without growing plants in the ground.  By that I mean we use plant cell culture rather than agriculture to deliver the health beneficial bioactives found in plants.

🇺🇸 DrunR

CEO: Yaya Ali
Focus: Personalised Nutrition
What: DrunR is an AI-powered nutrition platform that transforms any restaurant menu into real-time nutritional insights, helping users make informed dining choices whether ordering online, dining out, or cooking at home. 

🇺🇸 Kioga

CEO: Justin Whiteley
Focus: Longevity
What: Kioga discovers and commercialises novel dietary ingredients that act like natural “vaccinations” for stress, cognitive decline, and metabolic disorders. 

🇺🇸 Olfactive Biosolutions

CEO: Nils Lommerin
Focus: Weight Management
What: Olfactive Biosolutions uses proprietary formulations of food molecules to activate ectopic receptors in the body, to replace pharmaceuticals and treat myriad chronic diseases. 

🇺🇸 Optimized Foods

CEO: Zane Starkewolfe
Focus: Personalised Nutrition
What: Optimized Foods is a next-generation ingredient technology platform that upcycles agricultural byproducts and transforms them into precision-tuned, high-performance, nutrient-enriched ingredients using proprietary spherical mycelium fermentation.

🇺🇸 PillarBiome (formerly BetterMeal AI)

CEO: Swath Nagendra
Focus: Gut Health
What: PillarBiome pioneers AI-driven, non-invasive microbiome testing and microbiome-bioactive pairing to heal chronic diseases, optimising health through personalised, science-backed nutrition solutions.

Sub-Saharan Africa and MENA

🇮🇱 Better Juice

CEO: Gali Yarom
Focus: Glucose Management
What: Better Juice reduces sugar from Juices, Concentrate juice and puree

🇰🇪 Dunia Bora

CEO: Vincent Muhoro
Focus: Gut Health
What: Dunia Bora harnesses the power of the drought-resilient Opuntia cactus to create high-fiber, gut-health-boosting juice and flour, providing sustainable nutrition solutions for arid regions while empowering local farmers.

🇮🇱 EXOSOMM

CEO: Netta Granot
Focus: Gut Health
What: EXOSOMM develops a bioactive and patented nutritional supplement using science-based technology that harnesses the power of milk-derived exosomes with natural miRNAs to reduce and prevent inflammation. 

🇮🇱 Kokomodo

CEO: Tal Govrin
Focus: Personalised Nutrition
What: Kokomodo crafts real, climate-resilient cacao using cellular agriculture technology, delivering consistent, high-quality cocoa with enhanced functional benefits—tailored for personalized nutrition.

🇮🇱 myAir (Minerva Goods LTD.)

CEO: Rachel Yarcony
Focus: Personalised Nutrition
What: myAir harnesses real-time physiological and psychological data to deliver personalised functional nutrition solutions that seamlessly foster stress resilience and healthier ageing.

🇪🇬 P-Vita

CEO: Mohamed Tarek
Focus: Gut Health
What: P-Vita's molecular biology patented, IoT-enabled bioconversion system leverages AI-driven smart sensors and NML to transform algae and agricultural waste into beneficial microorganisms extract for better digestion, antioxidant, detoxing natural vegan high materials, optimising extraction for maximum yield and purity. 

🇮🇱 Rosalind Bioculture

CEO: Menashe Haskin
Focus: Longevity
What: Rosalind specialises in developing innovative yeast strains that naturally produce bioactive ingredients during fermentation. Their technology empowers beverage producers to craft functional drinks that blend exceptional flavor with enhanced health benefits.