ISRAEL – Israeli food-tech firm InnovoPro has raised US$3 million from a number of investors to scale up operations and enable the company venture into new business development activities.

The latest funding follows a US$15 million funding that the startup raised earlier this year in a series B round funding, led by Israeli VC firm Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP).

The current round of funding was comprised of a number of investors including, Rabobank’s Food & Agri Innovation Fund, venture capital firm ICOS Capital, and iAngels, an Israeli Angels investment platform.

Founded in 2015 and based in Raanana, north of Tel Aviv, InnovoPro developed a proprietary extraction process to concentrate protein from chickpeas, a functional protein that can serve as a clean label enabler for plant-based products.

The company was able to produce a 70% protein concentrate from chickpeas, with properties of a neutral taste, high functionality, and high nutritional values.

In line with the more informed and sophisticated consumer, novel plant-based protein solutions are coming under greater scrutiny in the context of their nutrition and sustainability footprint.

Chickpea with its high protein, fiber, iron, and other characteristics leads to a more nutritious alternative and allows for cleaner labeling with no need for the emulsifiers, enhancers, or masking agents necessary with competing analogues.

InnovoPro says that the ‘innovative’ plant protein is suitable for a wide range of applications, spanning the dairy alternatives, meat analogues, bakery and sports nutrition categories, and offers benefits such as eco-friendly credentials, as well as non-allergenic properties.

Taly Nechushtan, CEO of InnovoPro said:“InnovoPro will use the additional funding to scale up operational capabilities through increasing production capacity and for further business development activities, including forming joint ventures with strategic partners.”

Nechushtan further noted that the startup will also use the added funding to explore production collaboration options for protein and future products in the EU as well as expand EU supply chain capabilities.

Overall, the investments that InnovoPro intends to make will further strengthen its presence in the plant-based protein market which is currently estimated globally at US$40 billion and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 11% to $75 billion by 2027.

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