At the end of July, Chilean foodtech company NotCo became a unicorn after raising US$235 million in its fourth round of financing. NotCo is the largest foodtech company in Latin America and joins a growing army of similar companies that have exploded worldwide in a short period of time. According to some estimates, the market for meat produced from plant-based proteins will reach US$140 billion by 2029, ten times more than in 2019. The Boston Consulting Group, for its part, estimates that products made with alternative proteins could reach 11% of the meat, dairy, and egg market by 2035 in its baseline scenario and 22% in its best-case scenario. The keys to this nascent industry? Technology, technology, and technology.

NotCo, for example, uses artificial intelligence to develop flavors and textures similar to the original products. The US company Benson Hill, meanwhile, has created CropOS, which uses AI and machine learning to develop varieties of the most commonly used plants as alternative protein sources—soybeans and yellow peas—with better quality, higher productivity, and lower water and energy consumption. Another example is Nature Fynd, which announced a third round of financing of US$350 million in July and creates alternative dairy and meat products with a highly versatile fungal protein produced from a microbe originating in the geothermal sources of Yellowstone Park, consuming only a fraction of the water and energy of traditional products.

This has whetted investors' appetites. Financing for these companies has grown exponentially, mainly from private equity funds. Bon appétit!