This year’s Food Tech World Cup showcases some of the world’s most promising FoodTech startups.

Following a record 161 application, the jury selected 12 up-and-coming startups to pitch in the virtual Semi Final.

Next up, 6 Founders, 1 per region will pitch live on stage at the HackSummit on April 23 to an audience of Founders, Funders and Operators, where the winner will be crowned.

"One of the things I value most about the FoodTech World Cup is its ability to surface impactful innovation from across the global food industry,” notes Matias Peire, Founder and CEO at GRIDX. “We’re living in a time where science-driven, disruptive ideas can emerge from anywhere, and FoodHack is doing an outstanding job bringing that to light.”

"I was really impressed by the breadth of solutions developed by the start-ups, targeting supply chain resilience, health & wellness benefits, nutritional density, taste and sensory attributes, and more! Also, the solutions proposed are rooted in actual problems to solve, which should help with product market fit down the road," shares Celine Schiff-Debb, Chief Scientific Officer at Mista and Givaudan

"It was inspiring to see the breadth of high-quality ingredients emerging globally. At Kost Capital, we focus on ingredients and enabling technologies, with health as a core investment criterion, so it was particularly exciting to see so many companies building with that same ambition,” Bodil Sidén, General Partner at Kost Capital

With thanks to the Jury: Matias Peire at GRIDX, Bodil Sidén at Kost Capital, Eugenia Barcos and Christoph J. Bolten at Nestlé, Gil Horsky at FLORA Ventures, Steve Molino at Synthesis Capital and Celine Schiff-Debb at Mista and Givaudan

Representing APAC
Co-Founders and CEO: Angus Brown (CEO), Zachary Robinson

What: Ārepa is building the world’s first neuroactive food ingredient platform based on a patented molecule called sarmentosin, discovered in blackcurrant.

Their platform combines patented molecule IP, human clinical research, and scalable production pathways (natural extraction and future fermentation) to supply the global food and nutrition industry with a new class of bioactive ingredients designed to improve brain performance and healthspan.

Representing LatAm
Co-Founders and CEO: Juan Cassini (CEO), Daniela Albanesi, and Albertina Scattolini

What: BioClé is a food biotech platform using bacterial extracellular vesicles to dramatically improve the absorption and efficacy of functional bioactives in food and nutrition.

By enabling up to 2x higher functional efficacy, our technology reduces required doses, ingredient waste, and formulation inefficiencies, unlocking a new generation of scalable, science backed gut health and functional food products for global brands.

Representing MENA

CEO: Michal Beressi Golomb
Co-Founder & CTO: Hanne Volpin
Founded by: Hanne Volpin, Orna Harel, Avishai Levy, Daphna Michaeli

What: Celleste is building a resilient cocoa supply chain using plant cell culture technology.

The global cocoa industry is facing structural collapse driven by climate change, disease, and deforestation - leading to severe shortages and extreme price volatility.

Celleste produces 100% real, chocolate-grade cocoa butter and powder directly from cocoa cells, enabling a stable, traceable supply decoupled from climate and geographic constraints. Our ingredients integrate seamlessly into existing chocolate manufacturing, while significantly reducing land use and eliminating deforestation.

Backed by leading investors including Supply Change Capital and Mondelēz, Celleste is advancing toward pilot-scale production to help secure the future of chocolate.

Representing Europe
Co-Founders and CEO: Tomas Turner (CEO), Dimitri Zogg

What: Cosaic develops a unique natural multifunctional emulsion to enhance the texture and stability of dairy and dairy-free products, all at once, by itself.

Some of the most stable emulsions already exist in nature. Milk and egg yolk, for example, are naturally stable systems where water and tiny fat droplets remain perfectly dispersed, creating a smooth, uniform texture that lasts over time. In manufactured foods, achieving this kind of stability is highly desirable but typically requires added emulsifiers and stabilisers.

Cosaic Neo is produced by yeast cells and replicates this natural stability, delivering a clean, effective, animal-free solution inspired by nature.

Representing Sub-Saharan Africa
CEO: Vincent Muhoro

What: Nyika has developed a circular bioprocessing platform that converts climate-resilient CAM crops such as Opuntia cactus into functional food ingredients through fibre recovery, polyphenol extraction and SCOBY-mediated fermentation of cactus–honey substrates.

This enables the production of microbiome-supportive tonics and climate-positive inputs for next-generation food manufacturing from underutilized arid-land biomass.

Representing North America
Co-Founders and CEO: Justin Whiteley (CEO), Christopher Lowry, Chris Stamper, Adam Bohr

What: Kioga is building a new category of Old Friends functional ingredients - beneficial environmental microbes that humans evolved with but have lost in modern life. Decades of research has shown that these microbes play a critical role in training our immune system, and their absence is now linked to rising inflammation, stress, and chronic disease in industrialized societies.

Kioga’s lead ingredient, NeuroAlly™, is clinically shown to reduce inflammation and stress by targeting the immune–brain connection. With strong human data, premium B2B economics, and multiple brands preparing to launch across a variety of formats, Kioga is positioned to lead a new era of health - one that restores what modern life left behind.

With over 161 applications from around the world, 12 promising startups were invited to pitch in the Semi Final Demo Day.

Get to know the Semi Finalists:

Representing APAC
Co-Founders and CEO: Mick Riley, Jan Grant (CEO)

What: An Aotearoa New Zealand based cellular horticulture company developing new fruit and nut food solutions, working alongside industry to develop plant cell lines and growth media for custom fruit & nut ingredients.

They create reliable and on-demand supply of ingredients, with functional and flavour profiles tailored to specific application needs.

Representing Europe
CEO: Johnny Drain. Co-Founders: Giorgio Labruzzo, Pietro Labruzzo

What: Fermentation underpins alternative proteins, bio-based ingredients, and sustainable food production — yet yields remain low, cycles long, and scale-up costly. HypeSound is unlocking sound as a new control tool.

By using sound as a programmable control input — and capturing each culture’s bioacoustic fingerprint in real time — they are creating a new tool that doesn’t exist in current bioprocess toolkits. In its largest form it has the ability to radically transform the $1 trillion bioeconomy, making the next generation of biomanufacturing, including of food, faster, cleaner, cheaper, more sustainable, more energy efficient.

Representing MENA
Co-Founders and CEO: Shay Hilel, Maayan Gal, Zohar Barbash

What: Lembas is a deep-tech company pioneering a new class of precision-designed metabolic bioactive peptides using our proprietary AI discovery platform. Their platform analyzes billions of peptide sequences and maps them to receptors in the human gut, enabling the discovery of compounds that naturally influence metabolic pathways.

Their lead peptide, GLP-1 Edge, is a safe, oral, and scalable GLP-1-modulating compound that has already demonstrated meaningful metabolic effects in preclinical studies.

Representing North America
Co-Founders and CEO: Ricky Cassini (CEO), Mauricio Braia

What: Michroma makes natural food colors from filamentous fungi that stay stable from pH 3 to 10 and survive industrial processing like pasteurization and extrusion. Their lead product, Red+, delivers 57x the coloring power of beetroot.

They are producing kilograms at industrial scale today, with a manufacturing partnership with CJ CheilJedang and a distribution agreement with the world's largest natural color distributor. Because they use precision fermentation, their environmental footprint is fundamentally different from botanical alternatives. No arable land. No water-intensive crops. No seasonal supply variability.

Representing LatAm
Co-Founders and CEO: Carolina Aguila (CEO), Esteban Gerbino

What: Transforming traditional ingredients into high-bioavailability bio-nanoparticles to enhance nutrition, well-being, and longevity.

Their fermentation process uses unique microorganisms strains as natural biofactories, transforming raw materials into sustainable, health-enhancing ingredients that set a new standard in nutrition.

Representing Sub-Saharan Africa
CEO: Samuel Helu, Clepper Hakens

What: Getting functional and bioactive ingredients is necessary to produce high quality, affordable and high protein alternative proteins.

Sydsel Africa is working on 3D scaffold proteins, Brewers Spent Grains and Waste Yeast as ingredients for alternative proteins production