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For the reader, this post makes more sense if you have read the other two, both short, and read part one, on our origin story, and part two, on our research journey.

Having decided to start the company in 2022, eight years after first considering the idea, our research lead us, in 2023, to begin our pre-seed funding round for InsectBiotech group. This first ‘pre-seed’ round, in the usual way of start-ups, is funded by us as founders and by a group of ‘friends and family’ investors from all over the world.

The 600K Euro that we have raised and banked, has enabled us to become a real company, and to begin our R&D unit trials in Spain. We’ve been in Spain many times this year, with our CEO Ignacio Gavilan now living in Madrid, back where he hails from. His presence and our trips as a team have enabled us to select sites for trials and begin out partnerships with both the University of Granada (on feedstock treatment) and test manufacturing, with Casa Grande olive mill in Jaen, Andalusia.

More on this, in the next post. We’re able to support our R&D work with the initial money we have raised. This gives us time and opportunity to seek our next round of capital. This is for another 1m Euro, and will close in April 2024. For this second round (closing our Seed Round) we are prioritising Spanish investors and have met several already in Spain. We’ve also made excellent progress in building a network of contacts within and around government and public funding institutions, so as to help ‘de-risk’ investors, with external support.

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In the previous post, I mentioned how IBG came to exist and wrote a little about how the founders have known each other over the last 20+ years. Now we had an idea, we had a team, we had a place to build our company in (Andalucia, Spain), and a year of research began.

Between us, as experienced entrepreneurs, scientists and sustainability experts, we already knew we had a lot to learn. So we took on that challenge. Day after day, we called insect experts up, read every scientific and business article we could find, particularly on Black Soldier Flies and their magic larvae, and then read them all again. We got on Zoom, on planes, trains and in automobiles, to make sure we were finding out everything we could.

We had to learn about the insect itself, the waste we were using, how we would do R&D, and how to make the right feedstock for the larvae. We needed to cost out how much that would be, but also how much 10,000sqm of factory would cost to build and operate. Then how much it would cost, and what we could earn, from manufacturing 50,000 tonnes a year of protein by 2031.

We wanted a big goal, and we found one. At the same time as costing out factories, costs, testing, margins and all the usual work that goes into business plan writing, we also commissioned some laboratory experiments with respected institution, to sense-check our initial idea of using the most plentiful feedstock for BSF larvae in Andalucia, olive waste.

We were delighted to find that our hunch that this can be used for our business turned out right, and rigorous scientific testing has validated our fundamental business idea: That we can turn waste into wealth and help fill the protein and fertiliser gap.

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Our company was created by one man’s passion for the oceans. Ben, our founder, was once a marine biologist. He’s been worried about the decline of life in the sea since he first studied it 25 years ago. You might ask what making protein and fertiliser from waste has to do with that. The reason is simple. There’s a lot of fish taken from the ocean and used to feed animals. In 2020, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reported that out of the total world fisheries catch of 97 million tonnes, 22 million tonnes were allocated for non-food purposes, primarily for the production of fishmeal and fish oil. This is clearly a bad idea, and yet it goes on.

So part of the reason we created this company is to try and tackle that problem. If we can provide animal feed from waste that is usually burned, we think we can make a difference for the seas, and the important creatures who live in them.

I was working on insect protein a few years ago when Ben and I started discussing the need for a company like ours. Through my other company, Innovation Forum, I was chairing conversations with large companies, insect producers, retailers, and others, on the potential to develop the market for alternative proteins. Some of those recordings are here, and here.

Ben and I worked together more than 20 years ago, setting up and building an automotive technology start up that was eventually sold for $20m USD. We’ve been friends for even longer. I realised through the work we were doing in 2021, that he had come up with an idea that just had to be done: to create IBG.

Ben had been researching the area for ten years and had been waiting for the right time to start a company making insect protein. The first thing we did was call up Ignacio, now our CEO. He and I have worked together extensively for 15 years across his various roles and mine, particularly at Innovation Forum, and he and Ben are good friends too.

Ignacio’s work has always been about sustainably supply chains, like mine. He quickly saw the opportunity and joined our start up team, as excited as we were, about the prospects of using waste to create value, and displace unsustainable inputs for feed and fertiliser. Two key things happened next. The first was that Ben took a trip to Andalusia, Spain, and drove around the olive growing landscape for days. He rang Ignacio and I, and told us he had found exactly where we were going to research our products and operate our plans: In olive country, in the heart of Spain. The second thing we did, once we started modelling our numbers and raising capital for our business plan, was get our CFO, Phil on board. That may be one of the best decisions we ever made. We needed a specialist we trusted and who was keen to join us, and Ben and Phil had worked together on previous ventures successfully.