Venture studio Food Founders Studio has closed an oversubscribed €4 million funding round, supporting the development of innovative food-tech start-ups designed to address unmet needs across the food and beverage industry.

Securing investment has been notably challenging for the European food-tech industry in recent years – investors are becoming more selective and demanding stronger proof of commercial value, with many start-ups struggling to bridge the gap between pilot-scale lab innovation and commercial viability.

Despite this, Food Founders Studio noted that investment is ‘beginning to return,’ with European food-tech start-ups raising €401 million in the first half of 2026 – nearly 18% more than a year earlier, though the number of funding rounds fell by 12%.

Food Founders Studio, headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland, works with food and beverage manufacturers to identify key challenges for the industry, then searches for technologies that can address them.

Its boards assess technical performance, the commercial case, and the viability of the intellectual property. It then recruits experienced leadership and co-founds the selected venture, working alongside the team on industrial validation, partnerships and fundraising.

The studio has already scouted more than 100 technologies and advanced nine to validation before launching its first venture, SentaNovia.

SentaNovia is built around neutral plant protein technology licensed from a European university, with the tech designed to remove unwanted off-flavours at the source rather than masking them. Within a year of launch, it has now recruited a CEO and is working toward commercial production while closing its own funding round.

The €4 million, raised by family investment offices and angel investors, will support the studio’s next ventures and the work of identifying and securing the technologies behind them. It is currently recruiting a CEO and co-founder for its second company.

Additionally, the firm is expanding its search for technologies beyond universities and research institutes – it will now open its sourcing to start-ups and corporate R&D teams who cannot take technologies forward. The studio will assess those opportunities against the same industrial, technical and commercial criteria it applies to academic research.

Alexandre Morel, CTO and co-founder of Food Founders Studio, said: “A technology can be technically strong and still lack a route into the food industry”.

“We want to find that technology wherever it sits, secure what is needed to build on it, and put the right team around the opportunities that meet a tangible industry need.”