For the reader, this post makes more sense if you have read the other two, both short, and read part one, on our origin story, and part two, on our research journey.
Having decided to start the company in 2022, eight years after first considering the idea, our research lead us, in 2023, to begin our pre-seed funding round for InsectBiotech group. This first ‘pre-seed’ round, in the usual way of start-ups, is funded by us as founders and by a group of ‘friends and family’ investors from all over the world.
The 600K Euro that we have raised and banked, has enabled us to become a real company, and to begin our R&D unit trials in Spain. We’ve been in Spain many times this year, with our CEO Ignacio Gavilan now living in Madrid, back where he hails from. His presence and our trips as a team have enabled us to select sites for trials and begin out partnerships with both the University of Granada (on feedstock treatment) and test manufacturing, with Casa Grande olive mill in Jaen, Andalusia.
More on this, in the next post. We’re able to support our R&D work with the initial money we have raised. This gives us time and opportunity to seek our next round of capital. This is for another 1m Euro, and will close in April 2024. For this second round (closing our Seed Round) we are prioritising Spanish investors and have met several already in Spain. We’ve also made excellent progress in building a network of contacts within and around government and public funding institutions, so as to help ‘de-risk’ investors, with external support.