Venturelab supports 8 European agrifood startups during a week-long bootcamp
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Eight entrepreneurs from six countries participated in the Global Food Venture Program Pre-Incubation Bootcamp powered by the European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT) Food. The six-day online event provided early-stage entrepreneurs with the knowledge and skills to validate their startup ideas and create a viable business. Two startups, Origino and INSECTS4ALL, won a personalized training with Venturelab’s managing director Jordi Montserrat in the pitch competition.
The Global Food Venture Programme (GFVP) Pre-Incubation Bootcamp from EIT Food, Europe’s leading food innovation initiative, equips PhD students with the tools needed to turn their research into viable businesses in the food and agricultural technology sector. The partnership with Venturelab and the EPFL’s Integrative Food and Nutrition Center offers European-based foodtech startups six days of hands-on business training.
The eight PhD students turned entrepreneurs learned how to validate their startup ideas, sharpen their business model, and gained the essential skills needed to create a viable business. The workshops, presentations, and expert sessions provided a great opportunity to network with industry experts, potential business partners, and established foodtech startups such as Agrinorm, mybacs, Foodetective, and SwissDeCode. Robin Simsa from Revo Foods, an alumnus of the Global Food Venture Program, shared his startup’s story during an inspirational breakfast session.
The bootcamp concluded with a jury session in which Stella Spanou (University of Aarhus) and Christian Nils Schwab (EPFL and the Integrative Food and Nutrition Centre)—both GFVP partners—and Jordi Montserrat (Venturelab) chose two startups who won a personalized training with the Venturelab team:
The first winner is Verena Mückenhausen, the founder of Origino (Technical University of Munich, Germany), who aims to reconnect food producers with consumers by offering consumers hands-on experience in agricultural production. The program was helpful on many levels for Verena: “The program pushes you to your limits and takes you out of your comfort zone daily, but the interesting interactions with ecosystem experts and their feedback is a unique opportunity to really push your startup idea forward,” the entrepreneur explained. 
The second winner is Iudita Sampalean, the founder of INSECTS4ALL (Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Italy). Iudita develops fully automated insect farms to breed the insects for animal meal and other products. “This is a very intense program that touches on so many aspects that are important for establishing a business. The cherry on top: All these lessons are given by real experts who have years of experience in this area,” said Iudita.
EIT Food is Europe’s leading food innovation initiative that equips PhD students with the tools needed to turn their research into viable businesses in the food and agricultural technology sectors.
