Redalpine is excited to announce its Seed investment in Luya Foods, a Swiss food tech startup.
Luya Foods (Redalpine Capital VI) redefines the plant-based meat space by creating a new category of natural and tasty alternatives to meat. As a raw material, Luya rescues organic okara from going to waste: Okara is a by-product of tofu and soy milk production. More than 14 million tons go to waste globally every year despite okara’s high nutritional value and fiber content. Luya has developed a proprietary, patent-protected process – a combination of traditional fermentation methods and modern technology - to rescue okara and turn it into delicious food. Using this process, Luya skips all the additives and highly processed protein isolates, like pea protein offering 100% natural and organic deliciousness made in Switzerland. Luya already successfully launched Luya Okara Chunks and Luya Okara Burgers in Swiss gastronomy in July 2021.
The Seed financing was led by Redalpine Venture Partners and the fresh capital will be used for product development and retail market entry. To satisfy the rapidly growing demand for Luya’s delicious products, a first significant production scale up is planned in 2022. In addition, the new funding will accelerate researching future Luya products and strengthen Luya’s fermentation platform.
“We are thrilled to have secured the necessary capital to introduce Luya to the Swiss market, prepare our international expansion and accelerate our mission to define a new category in the space of alternatives to meat with our natural and organic products”, says Co-Founder Flavio Hagenbuch.
Nadine Geiser, investment manager at Redalpine adds: “I am so excited to embark on this journey together with Luya Foods. I never really liked soy-based meat alternatives and this is the first product that I really love – unbelievable, that it is made from soy. We are so excited to help Luya Foods bring their products to consumers all around the world.”
For more information read this Vegconomist article or visit Luya's website.