MOA Foodtech secures €14.8m to make ingredients using AI

MOA Foodtech founders Susana Sánchez, José María Elorza, and Bosco Emparanza

(Image: MOA Foodtech)

Millions of euros have been committed to the Spanish-headquartered food tech firm to bolster its development of ingredients through AI and biotechA large chunk of the fund from the European Commission will be used to optimise biomass fermentation in a bid to produce functional and sustainable ingredients, a market expected to exceed €90bn over the next decade.

MOA was one of 71 companies chosen to receive funding from the European Innovation Council (EIC), which will include grants and equity investments.

MOA Foodtech receives Commission fundingA direct grant of €2.5m will be used in a first phase of progress, while a second investment commitment of €12.5 will be used in a second phase.

Through the fund, founders Susana Sánchez, José María Elorza, and Bosco Emparanza will focus on advancing the business’s Non-GMO Directed Fermentation project. The project leverages artificial intelligence to transform by-products from the agri-food industry into high-value ingredients.

MOA aims to finalise the development of its AI platform, build a catalogue of proprietary ingredients showcasing the platform’s versatility, and scale processes to an industrial level.

The medium-term goal, with the support of the EIC Accelerator, is to become the first industrial-scale producer of ingredients using directed fermentation in Europe.

The platform has the ability to design processed and direct fermentation towards a specific product without using genetically modified organisms.

How the European Commission is supporting foodtech“It’s a vote of confidence from the European Commission in MOA’s technology, which seeks to revolutionize ingredient production,” said CEO Bosco Emparanza. “With this funding, we will boost investment in our AI platform and the development of new ingredients.”

The EIC claimed this round was the most competitive to date since the launch of the acceleration program under the Horizon Europe framework.

Some 1,211 applications were submitted during the round, with only 431 invited to present their projects to the council’s experts, before 71 projects were selected for funding.