Lisa-Marie Fassl and Nina Wöss are proud to announce one of the first investments of Fund F, the European venture fund that backs gender-diverse founder teams.
Fermify, an Austrian deep tech company developing a fully controlled production platform for casein proteins to empower their customers with the in-house production of vegan cheese products, is one of the first startups, which successfully pitched and won over the Fund F team with their business idea.
The company was founded by the serial vegan food tech entrepreneur Eva Sommer and her former professor, Christoph Herwig, a highly prominent thought leader in bioprocess engineering. “We have very strong demand from various customers and will have to select carefully the first 2 or 3 pilot customers that we start working with, allowing them to be first to the market with economically viable vegan cheese,” says Eva Sommer, Co-Founder and CEO of Fermify.
The company has secured $5 million in a seed funding round led by Climentum Capital. Co-investors include Auxxo Female Catalyst Fund, Fund F, Clima Now, Satgana Ventures, Triple Impact Ventures as well as existing investors such as Übermorgen Ventures, Backbone Ventures, Push Ventures and Simon Capital. Notably, a strong group of female investors is joining this round: Dörte Hirschberg from Climentum, who led this round, Bettine Schmitz from Auxxo and Nina Wöss from Fund F.
“It is still very rare to work together with a group of strong female co-investors, especially on deep tech and high impact topics like this” says Dörte Hirschberg, General Partner of Climentum Capital.
With the newly raised funds, Fermify will accelerate the optimization and full digitalisation of the bioprocess, as well as allow for team expansion to meet the global demand for its revolutionary animal-free production system.
“We at Fund F are thrilled to be a part of Fermify’s seed funding round, alongside a group of impactful co-investors, including Climentum Capital and Auxxo Female Catalyst Fund,” shared Nina Wöss. “Fermify’s revolutionary animal-free production system has the potential to transform the entire industry and cut down CO2 emissions. We are excited to support Fermify in its mission to optimize and refine its product to meet the global demand for sustainable alternatives.“
Fermify provides food companies with a full-service and automated B2B platform for casein production to amplify their alternative cheese and functional ingredient product quality, sustainability and speed-to-scale.
Funding Female-Led Startups
The much-anticipated announcement comes on the heels of a successful Fund F’s fundraising journey that started in October last year. Following its set-out, the Fund F team has been busy preparing for their rounds of investments, seeking between 25 to 30 pre-seed and seed stage companies that have at least one female co-founder who, importantly, has equal representation on the cap table.
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About Fermify
Fermify is an innovative, Austrian deep tech company that is developing a fully controlled production platform for casein proteins to empower their customers with the in-house production of vegan cheese products. Founded in November 2021 by Eva Sommer and Christoph Herwig, Fermify has brought together a team of 18 top-tier scientists and engineers with unique knowledge in continuous bioprocess engineering, molecular biology, process digitalization and food science to facilitate disruption of the dairy market by 2027.
Find out more at https://www.fermify.org/