Silicon Valley-based Khosla Ventures has led a $US15 million ($NZ22 million) Series A investment round in Christchurch-based plant protein company Leaft Foods.
The round has been supported by Ngāi Tahu Holdings through its new economy mandate, the Climate Change Impact Fund of the New Zealand Accident Compensation Commission (ACC) and NBA basketballer, New Zealander Steven Adams.
Alice Brooks of Khosla Ventures said: “At Khosla, we are all about investing in technologies that are bold and impactful. We are excited to be an early investor in Leaft and to work together with the team as they bring in a new era of agriculture and a shift in the way sustainable food is produced at scale.”
Leaft Foods has developed a technology that extracts protein from green leaf material and produces animal feed from the residue.
Every plant uses “RuBisCo” (ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase-oxygenase) as part of its photosynthesis process making it the most plentiful protein on earth. Leaft Foods’ technology enables the extraction of RuBisCo producing a protein that is good as any animal protein, has similar digestibility and is allergen free.
The company was founded by dairy industry veterans Dr John Penno and Maury Leyland Penno, respectively a co-founder and former head of Synlait Group and a former senior Fonterra executive. They launched Leaft Foods after recognising that trends toward plant-based diets and more sustainable farming practices both pointed toward developing protein from vegetable sources.
In 2019, the couple recruited Ross Milne, who had spent a decade working in the food industry in Europe, to help them commercialise RuBisCo production. Milne is now chief executive of Leaft. The company received a Project Grant from New Zealand government financed Callaghan Innovation in 2019 and has been assisted in its technology development by Callaghan since then. Last year, Leaft received $NZ8 million in government funding to prove its technology.
Leaft plans to use the new funding to develop its farming systems, technical and product development teams, expand research and development and enhance manufacturing capacity ahead of market launch.
Maury Leyland Penno said: “We’re reimagining how we make food and this could be a pathway to rapidly decarbonise by allowing farmers to farm in partnership with nature, creating a new approach to regenerative agriculture.”
She said the Leaft technology had the potential to feed the world’s population using less than 2% of land currently used for agriculture.
Leaft’s business model had been designed to integrate with existing farming systems and would create an opportunity for New Zealand agriculture to lead the global plant protein market which could reach $US36 billion annually by 2024.
“Milne said: “We have spent the last three years validating the Leaft system and proving our protein extraction technology at pilot scale. Embarking on commercialisation means generating an entirely new value chain. Our focus is on developing partnerships with those who share our commitment to creating a food system that prioritises the environment.”
Image: Leaft Foods co-founders Maury Leyland Penno and Dr John Penno. Photo credit: Jerome Warburton.