ValueGrain raises up to €3.3M seed to turn brewers' spent grain into food

What's the deal? Hamburg-based food tech startup ValueGrainDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → has raised a seed round of up to €3.3 million to scale its technology for upcycling brewers' spent grain into a plant-based, high-fibre food ingredient. The round is led by Bernhard SchadebergDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, managing partner of the Krombacher Brewery, with participation from existing investor Jeff Maisel.

What's the endgame? ValueGrain converts spent grain — a major brewing by-product — into an ingredient for human food production, giving breweries an extra revenue stream. It will use the capital to advance product development, expand its team, qualify the ingredient for more food applications, and build scalable logistics.

Why now? The round comes with a supply pipeline already in place. Krombacher produces just under 100,000 tonnes of spent grain a year, which is set to be channelled back into food production as a ValueGrain ingredient.

Combined with spent grain from Maisel's brewery sites, the deal secures ValueGrain access to just under 10% of all spent grain produced in Germany. The team previously received funding through the InnoRampUp programme run by Innovationsstarter GmbH.

"The brewing industry now needs pragmatic, innovative solutions that generate real value," said co-founder and chief executive officer Tim Gräsing. "Together, we will take the upcycling of spent grain to a new, industrial level."

The signal: ValueGrain's round is another sign that investors are backing industrial-scale upcycling in food and agriculture. It fits a wave of European seed financings for climate- and resource-focused agri-food startups, though at the smaller end as regional seed deals reach €20M and up.

Read more: StartupCity Hamburg

Image credit: ValueGrain