U.S – Clean Crop Technologies, a company that prides in providing sustainable solutions for reducing carbon emmissions, has raised US $6M in series A financing led by ReGen Ventures, Trailhead Capital, and the MassMutual Catalyst Fund.
This funding round will enable Clean Crop to continue scaling and commercializing their core technology across the supply chain.
The company uses electricity to decarbonize the way food is grown and keep it safe and fresh, helping to feed the world without burning it down.
Previous investors like Prime Impact Fund, Innova Memphis, Bread & Butter Ventures, and the Alchemy Fund also participated in the round backed by new investors like Active Impact, DC Thomson Capital, and Middleland Capital’s VTC Ventures.
Founded in 2019, Clean Crop Tech’s cutting-edge high voltage catalyst technology can boost yields, improve food safety, and reduce food waste in a broad range of food categories, including nuts, seeds, fruits and vegetables, meats, and seafoods.
“We are incredibly excited to continue scaling Clean Crop with partners that bring significant experience across the agtech and sustainability landscape,” said CEO & Co-founder, Dan White.
Clean Crop’s technology called “high-voltage atmospheric cold plasma” combines air and electricity to create ionized gases that can kill off mold and toxins post-harvest. The reactive gases revert back to ambient air after processing, leaving behind no harmful residues.
In less than 10 months, the startup has brought its technology from academic journals to benchmark prototypes and is well positioned to scale in myriad verticals.
The company, which was a MassChallenge, a global, zero-equity startup accelerator, finalist in 2019, raised a US$3M seed round in 2020, led by Prime Impact Fund, an early-stage climate tech impact investing fund.
Clean Crop Tech’s drive to enhance food safety and reduce waste is born out of the common interests of its co-founders, said PR Newswire.
“ReGen is thrilled to partner with the Clean Crop team on its mission to transform agricultural supply chains for the better.”
Dan White started his career in horticulture in the US and then spent over a decade working in agricultural production in emerging markets, where he met COO & Co-founder Daniel Cavanaugh in Quelimane, Mozambique in 2012.
At the time, Cavanaugh was a commercial manager with Cargill. The two co-founders initially began researching solutions to food safety and waste to commercialize, and eventually met Dr. Kevin Keener, a leader in plasma technologies for food, and Clean Crop co-founder//CSO, and started the company with him in 2019 to take Dr. Keener’s innovations to scale.
Funding partners thrilled
Dan Fitzgerald, Managing Partners at ReGen Ventures, who will be joining Clean Crop’s Board of Directors, confirmed ReGen’s lead on Clean Crop’s raise.
The Australia-based firm invests in regenerative technology companies.
“ReGen is thrilled to partner with the Clean Crop team on its mission to transform agricultural supply chains for the better. Clean Crop has a unique opportunity to catalyze a paradigm shift by deploying its technology that massively reduces waste, dramatically improves food safety while preserving the fundamental goodness of produce,” he said.
Additional investors in Clean Crop’s Series A raise round included ReGen Ventures, Trailhead Capital, MassMutual Catalyst Fund, DCT Capital, VTC/Middleland, Active Impact, My Climate Journey, Innova Memphis, Alchemy Fund, and Bread & Butter Ventures.
Pete Oberle, Managing Partner at Trailhead Capital, who co-led the series A round, lauded Clean Crop Tech’s invention citing it significantly improves on the cost, efficiency, and efficacy of removing food contaminants.
“Trailhead is thrilled to be partnering with the team at Clean Crop as they reduce waste, improve safety, and preserve quality across a wide range of foods to make a material leap forward in improving human and planetary health,” he said
Adding her voice on the same, the head of Impact Investing at MassMutual, Liz Roberts, noted that Clean Crop Technologies’ game-changing solutions are redefining the future of pasteurization and transforming the food supply chain.
“We are excited to partner with its incredible founders and support the company with catalytic capital and resources as it continues to grow,” she stated
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