Sweet treat: two chocolate startups score festive funding boost

Sourcing cocoa beans in a sustainable way has long been a major issue for the €130 billion chocolate industry.

German foodtech company Planet A Foods and Copenhagen-based Endless Food Co are both trying to address that by making cocoa-free chocolate. Both have pulled in major investments in the past week.

Twins Maximilian and Sara Marquart launched Planet A Foods in 2021 with the idea of taking cocoa out of the chocolate-making process. The company has now raised $30 million – or €28 million – in a Series B funding round led by Burda Principal Investments and Zintinus, with additional support from the World Fund and other ventures.

In Denmark, Endless Food Co has raised €1 million in a pre-seed round after developing a way of producing a cacao-like substance using waste streams from breweries.

Expanding production to 15,000 tonnes

For Planet A Food, the investment will allow the company to expand production from 2,000 tons to 15,000 tons annually. Its ChoViva product is already established in Germany, Austria and Switzerland and the company is now eyeing the British and French markets.

“With 30 million dollars in fresh funding and an industry-leading product, Planet A Foods is no longer just a startup – we’re now on the way to becoming a leading player reshaping the sustainable food industry,” says CEO Maximilian Marquart. “Our mission remains unchanged: to provide sustainable food ingredients that are decoupled from limited and price volatile resources such as cocoa.”

BPI says Planet A Foods is providing a sustainable solution that addresses issues such as deforestation, child labour and a volatile cocoa supply chain.

“Planet A Foods perfectly matches our thesis for innovative materials where we invest into companies that leverage modern technology and produce certain materials with the same quality and specifications, but in an innovative, sustainable and environmentally friendly way,” says Christian Teichmann, CEO of BPI.

Endless Food Co has taken a similar approach, developing a product called THIC (This Isn’t Chocolate) that mimics the taste of chocolate.

The funding from Nordic Food Tech VC will allow the company to build a pilot facility and expand the team, co-founder Max Bogenmann tells Impact Loop.

“We aim to reduce emissions in large scale chocolate production, which is something we have made great strides towards,” explains Bogenmann.