German Poultry Giant Backs Mycelium Meat Startup in €3M Funding Round

German food tech startup Kynda has raised €3M in seed funding to expand production of its mycoprotein-based meat made from upcycled food waste.

Fuelling its drive to make sustainable protein from food waste, German startup Kynda has secured €3M in a seed funding round led by Enjoy Ventures (through its Invest-Impuls Scale fund).

The financing included participation from Swiss climate tech investor Clima Now and German poultry giant PHW Group (parent company of Wiesenhof), and takes its total raised to €5.8M.

These invetors will be joined by C.E.L.L. Investment in a second closing of the seed round. Anticipated in April, this upcoming round currently has a commitment of €200,000, but “discussions are ongoing with others”, Kynda co-founder and COO Franziskus Schnabel told Green Queen.

Kynda will use the capital to scale up its fermentation technology and mycoprotein production at its factory in Jelmstorf, a municipality near Hamburg, which is set to open in Q2 2025.

“Since its foundation in 2024, VTEC Precision Foods, a subsidiary of the PHW Group, has been intensively dedicated to the fermentative extraction of raw materials from byproducts of plant protein production,” said Marcus Keitzer, chief alternative proteins officer of the PHW Group. “An investment and partnership in the field of fungal-based fermentation was therefore the next logical step for us.”

Investment will help Kynda scale up to meet client demand

Founded in 2019 by Schnabel and CEO Daniel MacGowan, Kynda utilises food industry sidestreams like soy, oat and rice pulp, which are put through a submerged biomass fermentation process. Here, microorganisms are rapidly grown in a liquid medium, and the entire biomass becomes the end product.

Kynda’s fungal strain – already compliant with the EU’s novel foods regulations – allows it to produce mycelium protein in just 48 hours, compared to seven to 10 days for the industry standard.

The resulting ingredient is a raw material that is cheaper to produce than plant-based textures and boasts environmental and nutritional aspects that Kynda believes will entice manufacturers. 

According to the company, their mycelium meat generates 700% fewer greenhouse gas emissions than pea protein, an ingredient used by industry giants like Beyond Meat.

Moreover, it has a protein content of 44% in dry matter and comprises all nine essential amino acids. Plus, it’s low in fat, rich in fibre and vitamins, and allergen-free. These attributes make the meat suitable for use in applications like plant-based alternatives, hybrid meat, dog food, and animal feed.

Its technology integrates hardware and biotechnological expertise, offering a scalable plug-and-play solution for industrial partners. The new factory, first announced in May, spans 6,200 sq m and features two 720 sq m production halls. Equipped with 30,000 litres of fermentation capacity, the facility will allow Kynda to manufacture 2,000 tonnes of mycelium protein annually.

The PHW partnership will allow it to scale up capacity to 70,000 litres. “Many of our customers require thousands of metric tonnes of product. This investment will allow us to increase our production capacity with our partners to meet those needs and to reach the mass market,” said MacGowan.

Kynda – which unveiled its mycoprotein as part of a vegan pork burger by The Raging Pig Company last year – is among several fungi protein producers in the country, including Nosh.bio, Bosque Foods, ProteinDistillery, Infinite Roots (all of which are also valorising industry sidestreams).

More and more alternative protein firms are repurposing food waste to produce valuable ingredients, whether it’s turning beer industry waste into food and nutraceuticals, apricot kernels into milk, or surplus farm produce into blended meat, which is helping given that one-third of all food produced is wasted, which is responsible for 8-10% of all global greenhouse gas emissions.

A ripe market for mycelium and fermentation

PHW Group has signed on as a strategic partner for Kynda, its latest effort to expand into the alternative protein market. Europe’s fourth largest poultry company, it has been selling vegan products since 2015, and has a plant-based label called Green Legend.

In 2022, it signed a deal with Israeli-cultivated meat startup SuperMeat to bring these products to market in Europe, a year before it founded VTEC Ingredients to advance biotech processing and raw material manufacturing for plant-based meat and seafood. This was followed by the establishment of VTEC Precision Foods, which focuses on fermentation.

“By closely networking our teams, we can develop innovative formulations and further optimise existing products,” Keitzer said of the partnership with Kynda. “At the same time, this partnership strengthens our position in the field of fermentative raw material production and promotes the development of a competitive infrastructure.”

Kynda’s Schnabel added: “This strategic partnership creates exciting synergies, accelerating the implementation and commercialisation of our technology and superfood raw materials. With PHW’s support, we are well-positioned to drive sustainable innovation at scale.”

The startup’s fundraising round comes at a fruitful time for mycelium protein companies. One of the best-known names in the category, Meati, raised $100M in Series C funding last year when its sales doubled. This was the largest investment in an alternative protein startup since Meati’s own Series B raise in 2022.

Infinite Roots also made the top five of that list with its $58M round in January 2024, and has since entered the South Korean market through a partnership with local food giant Pulmuone. Finnish mycoprotein startup Enifer also received €24M in new funding to build a commercial-scale factory, while New York-based Ecovative secured $28M for its mycelium-derived MyBacon.

This dovetails with heightened VC interest in fermentation-derived proteins. While investment in plant-based food and cultivated meat startups dropped by 64% and 40%, respectively, fermentation companies enjoyed a 43% hike in financing in 2024.

“Investors are increasingly cautious about the long timelines and uncertain regulatory pathways for cultivated meat. In contrast, fermentation and mycelium-based startups are seen as nearer-term opportunities with clearer paths to profitability,” explained Schnabel.

“Mycelium and fermentation technologies are more cost-effective and scalable compared to cultivated meat, which faces high production costs due to expensive growth media and complex bioreactor requirements,” he added. “Mycoprotein production, for example, uses readily available agricultural byproducts, making it more sustainable and price-competitive. This aligns with Kynda’s model of utilising food industry byproducts.”