Investment Climate

Episode 90: Planet A Foods: Max Marquart & Jürgen Keil on surviving the CapEx leap, supply chain economics, and building a Corporate inside a Startup  

In this episode, I sit down with Maximilian Marquart (CEO and Co-founder of Planet A Foods) and Jürgen Keil (former Cargill Executive and current Supply Chain Advisor) to discuss the brutal reality of scaling a deep-tech food company. Planet A Foods is renowned for executing on one of the hardest challenges in the industry: manufacturing its proprietary cocoa-free chocolate entirely in-house. Max explains why they were forced to build their own factory when legacy co-manufacturers refused to run their product, and why hiring a seasoned corporate supply chain veteran like Jürgen was the only way to survive the transition from lab-scale to commercial delivery. We also dive deep into Jürgen's 33 years of agribusiness experience, dismantling the myth of the "sustainability premium" and explaining why value chains must be designed backward from strict cost constraints.
🎧 Listen to the full episode to hear Max’s exact math on why an expensive supply chain executive pays for themselves after preventing just two ruined 24-ton shipments. 

Key Facts Planet A Foods:
Maximilian Marquart: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-maximilian-marquart-24a802107/
Jürgen Keil: https://www.linkedin.com/in/juergen-keil-7ab34a31/
Website: https://planet-a-foods.com/
Headquarters: Germany
Goal: To build a next-generation food ingredient champion by manufacturing a proprietary, highly scalable, and sustainable cocoa-free chocolate alternative.
Milestone: Successfully transitioned from lab-scale production (100 grams) to fulfilling multi-ton line trials by building and operating their own vertical manufacturing facility in 2022.

Blurb:
Planet A Foods is building the next generation of ingredients for the global food industry. Through a scalable fermentation platform, we create resilient, future-ready B2B ingredient solutions that tackle the defining challenges of our time — climate change, supply chain disruption, and the growing demand for sustainable food at scale. Our ingredients deliver exceptional taste and cost efficiency without compromise, enabling food producers to reduce millions of tons of carbon emissions each year. We don't just adapt to the transformation underway in the food world — we're leading it. Our mission: protect the planet we love by making sustainable, high-quality ingredients the new standard for mass market products worldwide.

Episode 89: ICL Group: Ziv Kohav on securing paid POCs and why marketing claims are noise to a $7B corporate 

In this episode, I sit down with Ziv Kohav, Head of the Open Innovation Program (ICL Open) at ICL Group, a $7 billion specialty minerals giant headquartered in Israel. Ziv outlines exactly how early-stage (even TRL3) startups can secure paid Proof of Concept (POC) projects with ICL across their Plant Nutrition and Food Specialties divisions. We discuss why founders need to stop pitching the "market need" and focus strictly on scientific data and strategic fit. Ziv also breaks down the internal corporate timeline, revealing why startups operating on a 3-month runway are setting themselves up for failure when trying to close a corporate licensing deal that requires agricultural growing seasons to validate. 
🎧 Listen to the full episode to hear Ziv’s advice on how to price your POC without triggering red flags in the corporate procurement department.

Key Facts ICL Group:
Ziv Kohav: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zivkohav/
Website: https://www.icl-group.com/
Headquarters: Israel
Goal: To scout, fund, and license external technologies (TRL3 and up) focusing on advanced plant nutrition, abiotic stress reduction, and clean-label functional food ingredients.
Milestone: Transitioned away from a standalone CVC structure to a highly integrated Open Innovation model where paid POCs directly lead to licensing agreements managed by core business units.

Blurb:
ICL is a global specialty minerals and chemicals company operating across four core segments — Growing Solutions, Phosphate Solutions, Potash, and Industrial Products. With innovation at the core of its strategy, ICL develops advanced agricultural inputs that strengthen food security worldwide, alongside next-generation energy storage systems designed to improve lives at scale. From feeding a growing planet to powering a cleaner future, ICL combines deep mineral expertise with forward-looking R&D to drive sustainable growth across the industries that matter most.

Episode 88: Zubi Capital: Johan Morales on Spain as the Go-To-Market Hub and the death of "Consumer Behavior" pitches
In this episode, I sit down with Johan Morales, an investor at Zubi Capital, a Spanish asset management firm operating three distinct vehicles: a Venture Debt fund for impact scale-ups, an early-stage (Pre-Seed/Seed) Diversity Catalyst VC, and a highly specialized Type 1 Diabetes fund. Johan reflects on the $50 billion of wealth destroyed in the first wave of AgriFoodTech and explicitly outlines why pitches relying on changing consumer behavior are dead on arrival. We explore Zubi’s thesis on hardware-plus-software "add-on" solutions, why securing an ROI for farmers from day one is non-negotiable, and how international founders can use Spain as the ultimate fragmented market testing ground by setting up a local subsidiary. 
🎧 Listen to the full episode to hear Johan’s masterclass on how to spot (and avoid) "impact washing" and why regulatory tailwinds are a bonus, not a business model.

Key Facts Zubi Capital:
Johan Morales: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johan-morales-impact/
Website: https://zubicapital.com/
Headquarters: Spain
Goal: To deploy impact-driven capital across three vehicles (Venture Debt, Early-Stage VC, and a dedicated Type 1 Diabetes fund) targeting solutions with intrinsic "lockstep" impact models.
Milestone: Actively deploying €200K–€500K initial checks from their early-stage fund, with a mandate to back digital solutions and software-enabled hardware in the Spanish ecosystem.

Blurb:
Zubi Capital is an independent asset manager at the forefront of impact investing. We design high-performance investment strategies across asset classes — targeting market-rate returns while addressing the world's most pressing social and environmental challenges. Our approach combines rigorous financial analysis with deep triple impact expertise, delivering long-term value without compromise. At Zubi Capital, impact is our guiding light and financial performance is our edge — because investors should never have to choose between profitability and purpose.

Episode 87: Tomorrow, Inc.: Dr. Alec Lorenzo on bootstrapping SynBio, the "Functional Assay" of sales, and First Principles valuation 

In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Alec Lourenco, CEO and co-founder of Tomorrow, Inc., a biotech platform engineering proteins that bind to taste receptors to replicate—and evolve—the experience of sugar and salt. Alec shares the scrappy origin story of how they bootstrapped a hand-canned soda company just to demo their initial FDA-approved sweet protein blend, a hustle that ultimately landed them a $1M round led by Carbon Silicon Ventures. We dive deep into why early-stage founders must rely on "first principles" rather than pattern matching for their valuations, the danger of investors mistaking a biotech platform for a CPG brand, and how to survive the SynBio winter through extreme capital efficiency. 
🎧 Listen to the full episode to hear how Alec navigated asking a former boss for an angel check and why he believes the ultimate laboratory test is a paying customer.

Key Facts Tomorrow, Inc.:
CEO & co-founder: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alec-lourenco-353610a5/
Goal: To engineer novel flavor proteins that replace unhealthy ingredients like sugar and salt, creating healthy and "whimsical" taste experiences using a proprietary "tongue-in-the-loop" discovery system.
Milestone: Raised a $1M round led by Carbon Silicon Ventures, generated early revenue through a prototype D2C soda to prove market demand, and is currently seeking challenger brands for co-development partnerships.

Blurb:
Weekend is making anything taste like anything using engineered protein binders that activate your sweet, fat, and salt receptors to replace unhealthy ingredients like sugar, salt, and fat.

Episode 86: Royal Cosun: Jara van den Bogaerde on Corporate Open Innovation and surviving the 6-month Pilot timeline 

In this episode, I sit down with Jara van den Bogaerde, Open Innovation Manager at Royal Cosun, a 125-year-old Dutch food processor and cooperative representing 8,500 farmers. Jara pulls back the curtain on how a massive corporate player scouts and collaborates with early-stage AgriFoodTech startups. We discuss the difference between Cosun’s CVC arm (writing ~$5M Series A equity checks) and its Open Innovation division, which bypasses the equity table to focus on pre-seed and seed-stage pilots, joint ventures, and licensing. Jara details their specific 2026 mandate to find disruptive technologies in alternative proteins, fibers, and side-stream valorization, and explains why founders need to stop pitching with a "trust us, we're great" mentality. 
🎧 Listen to the full episode to hear Jara’s reality check on the timeline for securing a paid corporate pilot and why startups with only two months of runway are already too late.

Key Facts Royal Cosun:
Goal: To build a sustainable 10-year innovation pipeline by partnering with startups to co-develop, license, or scale technologies in alternative proteins, texturizers, and side-stream valorization.
Milestone: Operating with a pre-allocated R&D budget for Open Innovation, allowing them to bypass internal budget-hunting to rapidly execute paid POCs and pilots with startups.