Food-tech company Nature’s Fynd has raised a further $45 million and hired a number of industry veterans, in order to accelerate its go-to-market strategy.

The Chicago-based start-up is looking to gear up the 2021 launch of its nutritional fungi protein Fy, which is produced from a microbe sourced from volcanic springs and can be used to make alternative meat and dairy products.

The latest financing round – comprised of venture debt and equipment financing commitments from Oxford Finance and Trinity Capital – will enable Nature’s Fynd to accelerate its market strategies, introduce more product offerings and ensure optimal capital efficiency.

This takes the company’s total funding to date to $158 million, after it raised $80 million in a Series B funding round in March and $33 million last year.

Meanwhile, Nature’s Fynd has added four industry veterans to its team, bringing over 60 years of combined experience from companies such as ADM, Cargill, Bel Brands USA and Kind Snacks.

Former VP of food research at ADM, Baljit Singh Ghotra, will join the company as SVP of food innovation, while Emilie Runac has been appointed director of manufacturing after 16 years at Bel Brands USA.

Former Kind Snacks employee Pat Dalugdug will take on the role as director of sales, while Tom Frey will serve as director of project engineering. Frey brings with him 16 years of experience at Cargill, most recently as engineering manager and will use his extensive fermentation experience to continue scaling production for the commercial launch of Fy.

Co-founder and CEO of Nature’s Fynd, Thomas Jonas, said: “Today, we’ve announced the hiring of sev­er­al top food indus­try experts who will significantly advance the com­mer­cial success of our prod­ucts.

“We’re at a piv­otal moment where chang­ing the way we all eat to take bet­ter care of our health and to care for our plan­et is cru­cial. Using Fy, our nutri­tion­al fun­gi pro­tein, we’ve made foods that con­tain a com­plete pro­tein and have an extreme­ly low car­bon foot­print.

“Now Nature’s Fynd needs to bring these deli­cious foods to mar­ket so we can all be part of the solu­tion to cli­mate change.”

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