© Innovafeed
The French company, developer of insect-based ingredients (Hermetia illucens) for animal nutrition, pet food and agriculture, has transitioned its laboratory-developed innovations into full-scale industrial reality. Backed heavily by existing financial partners, the new investment will target commercial deployment and operational excellence.
Since its founding, Innovafeed has focused on producing local, sustainable, and high-performance alternatives to traditional feed ingredients. Following its previous funding round in 2022, the company has reached full industrial maturity at the Nesle production unit. Over the past three years, the facility has produced more than 15,000 tonnes of protein and oil. Innovafeed has scaled its production volumes tenfold while reducing manufacturing costs by a factor of seven. The company states its production capacity is now three times larger than that of its closest global competitor.
This expansion coincides with strong commercial traction, with revenues doubling annually driven by partnerships centred on its Hilucia product range. Furthermore, Innovafeed claims its circular industrial symbiosis model delivers a 70 to 90 percent reduction in carbon emissions compared to conventional feed products.
“Innovafeed's products represent one of the key solutions for more sustainable and high- performing aquaculture,” said Fabio Brambilla, nutritionnist at NaturAlleva, in a press release. “After many years of studying the benefits of this raw material in the nutrition of sea bass, sea bream, and trout, we have made the decision to use these new ingredients on a very broad scale.”
Strategic consolidation and restructuring
Following an intense phase of R&D and industrial development that successfully cleared critical operational maturity milestones, the company is embarking on a new stage of its growth. In this context, it is initiating a reorganisation of its activities, specifically the reduction of zootechnical R&D activities and their integration from its historical Gouzeaucourt site into the Nesle facility. A project involving the reduction of 60 positions is planned, two-thirds of which affect the Gouzeaucourt site.
This evolution of the organisation will be carried out with dedicated support for the employees concerned, within the framework of close social dialogue with the Social and Economic Committee (CSE) of the company and the competent authorities.
Future commercial objectives
The new financing operation will specifically enable Innovafeed to:
- Accelerate the commercial development of the HiluciaTM ranges, particularly within the functional segments of aquaculture and pet food;
- Invest in industrial equipment and processes in order to develop new offerings and applications;
- Optimise the industrial asset base to increase the performance and capacities of the production lines.
Confident in the solidity of Innovafeed's industrial model, its growth trajectory, and the potential of its ingredients to meet the long-term challenges of the agri-food sectors, the operation received very broad support from its historical shareholders, notably Creadev, QIA, Temasek, FFC, ABC Impact, and ADM, as well as its banking partners.
“Since day one, we have carried a dual ambition: to demonstrate that we can produce high- performing, competitive, and sustainable ingredients for nutrition without relying on the intensive exploitation of marine resources; and that it is possible to build an innovative industrial project in France.
“The successful scale-up of our industrial model marks a major milestone for Innovafeed today and opens up a new phase of commercial deployment. Innovafeed is now focusing its efforts on accelerating the development of value chains for its ingredients, capturing the full value of their multiple functional properties improving animal health and growth, which have been validated and proven for ten years now,” said Clément Ray, chief executive officer and cofounder of Innovafeed.
As global food systems face mounting pressure to reduce dependence on marine resources, Innovafeed aims to position its proven model as a commercially viable, scalable solution to a growing ecological challenge.
