Circular economy business CauliBox, which is the UK’s first tech-enabled reusable container scheme has secured £250,000 in a seed funding round led by SFC Capital, with Angel investors. CauliBox provides award-winning, digitally-enabled reusable solutions to disrupt the disposable food packaging market, an industry worth £45 billion a year globally. For its endeavours, CauliBox has been named in the FoodTech 500 and co-founder Josephine Liang was recently named in the Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe 2021 - ‘Social Impact’ category.

Gresham House Ventures, a specialist growth equity investor providing development capital to innovative consumer, healthcare and services businesses, has agreed the sale of its stake in Pho, the leading Vietnamese restaurant group, on behalf of the Baronsmead VCTs.

Kitche has become a recipient of £68,000 in UK government funding under the Resource Action Fund to help support its important work to ensure no good food goes to waste.  The money has been awarded to Kitche by WRAP, which administers the fund on behalf of DEFRA. The grant is being used to introduce new features to the Kitche app and platform to further drive behaviour change in home kitchens.

Insect-based snack company Small Giants has closed a new investment round of more than £400,000, after raising £130,000 in the first round in March 2020.  The startup, founded by Francesco Majno and Edoardo Imparato, has far exceeded its initial target of £250k, following significant funding from investors.  A sizeable proportion of the investment came from shareholders and partners of iN3 Ventures’ network; an innovation advisory and corporate venture capital company. One of its partners, Mario Rizzola Pasotti, is also now a member of the Small Giants Advisory Board.

Edinburgh’s largest plastic free grocery store, The Refillery, has been nominated for the Food Hero Scotland campaign.

Aberdeen based EBar is raising a glass after closing a £670,000 equity round that will accelerate the roll-out of their self-service drinks dispensing technology to busy venues across the UK & Europe. The funding was led by the Seedrs crowdfunding platform and Irish events entrepreneur Robert O’Dowd, with follow on investments from Jenson Funding Partners, Equity Gap and Gabriel Investment Syndicate.

London-based startup, BEPPS Snacks, has raised £400,000 investment from early-stage venture capital investors, Ascension Ventures, 

Arborea – which is industrialising photosynthesis to expand the world’s food supply –  has completed a funding round led by BGF, the UK & Ireland’s most active investor, alongside Rubio Impact Ventures and Volta Circle.

Arborea is a technology business that has developed a breakthrough cultivation platform for photosynthetic microorganisms for use as food ingredients and proteins. It was founded by CEO Julian Melchiorri in 2015 following his research at Imperial College London. 

Distill Ventures is committed to increasing diversity within the drinks industry through a range of global initiatives, 

BGF, the UK & Ireland’s most active growth capital investor, has completed a cornerstone investment in The Artisanal Spirits Company plc, a specialist retailer of premium single cask, single malt Scotch whisky and other spirits, as part of its admission to trading on AIM. The admission took place on 4 June 2021.

Inverleith LLP, a Scottish-based consumer brands investor, is celebrating the listing on AIM of its portfolio company, The Artisanal Spirits Company which has the largest collection of single malt single cask whiskies in the world, as well as a complementary range of premium spirits.

SENTZ, a new range of naturally fruitful British hard seltzers for people who want to live life guilt-free, has received investment from Henley Business Angels (HBA) members and guest investors.