UZWIL, SWITZERLAND — Icos Capital held the Collaborative Innovation Summit at Bühler’s CUBIC Innovation Campus on Feb. 29, bringing together investors, industry leaders and startups from the food, chemicals and biotech sectors to accelerate sustainable solutions.

The partners plan to grow their collaboration to enable startups to scale up their efforts in urgent and complex challenges in the food and chemicals industries.

“Our goal at Icos Capital is to identify and invest in next-level innovations to accelerate sustainability,” said Peter van Gelderen, general partner at Icos Capital. “Through our model of collaborative venturing, we bring startups specialized in sustainable food, circular economy, sustainable industry, and decarbonization into win-win partnerships with corporates, supporting their growth.”

The startups Icos backed since 2006 have disrupted and led their respective markets and have benefited from the Icos approach of considering financial, social, and environmental returns in equal measure.

“The event here at Bühler’s CUBIC Innovation Campus is a great example of turning challenges into opportunities: we’ve connected forward-thinking entrepreneurs with brilliant ideas to solve major problems with investors ready to identify the next startup to take to the next level and brought in industry partners equipped with the know-how and technology to accelerate positive impact at scale,” van Gelderen said.

Over 30 startups from across Europe pitched their innovations and discussed collaborations with corporations, sparking mutually beneficial partnerships going forward.

“We’re delighted to play a role in strengthening this collaborative venturing approach to scale impactful innovation,” said Ian Roberts, chief technical officer of Bühler. “With established supply chains and market access, we believe that corporates in the room can play a crucial role in the journey of startups and enable them to scale both their business and their sustainable impact significantly faster.”

Icos and Bühler see technology readiness levels increasing and positive changes in the market in precision fermentation, bio-based chemicals, and side stream valorization.

MoA FoodTech is a startup focusing on healthy and sustainable ingredients based on byproduct valorization through biomass fermentation.

“We valorize byproducts from the agrifood industry into high value ingredients with excellent functional properties, nutritional value, and sensory attributes for the food industry,” said Bosco Emparanza García, chief executive officer and co-founder of MoA FoodTech. “This summit is crucial for us to build partnerships with industrial capacity, knowledge, and drive to take our technology to the next level and accelerate our impact along the food value chains.”

Another startup that caught the attention of industry leaders and investors alike is Abolis. The French startup develops bio-based solutions to produce foods, fragrances, chemicals, and agrochemical products in a more sustainable and clean way via precision fermentation.

“We’re experts in the architecture of microorganism metabolism to replace a variety of chemicals in industrial applications,” said Cyrille Pauthenier, CEO of Abolis. “We had the unique opportunity to share our ideas and connect with industrial companies, potential investors, and like-minded entrepreneurs. Startups are mostly technology developers that don’t have the capacity to make full use of their technology. We need large industrial players to scale up, and the contacts we made today will help us to combine expertise, capabilities, and to grow.”

The event was an early highlight for Icos in 2024. Their search together with Bühler for high potential, sustainable startups continues.