Dutch food tech startup The Protein Brewery has closed an €18M ($20.5M) extension of its Series B round to expand production of its Fermotein mycoprotein and support its EU launch.
Days after securing the first novel food approval for whole-food mycelium protein in the EU, The Protein Brewery has raised €18M ($20.5M) in a Series B extension round.
The Dutch fermentation specialist is building on the €30M ($35M at the time) Series B funding it secured in September 2025, with the latest tranche of investment taking its total raised past €70M (nearly $80M).
This extension was led by first-time investor Dutch bank ABN AMRO’s Sustainable Impact Fund, which was joined by existing backers Invest-NL (the national government’s promotion body), Novo Holdings (the parent company of Ozempic maker Novo Nordisk), Madeli, and the Brabant Development Agency.
The capital will be used to scale up production of The Protein Brewery’s Fermotein ingredient, prepare for market entry into the EU, and pursue regulatory approvals in new markets, including Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and India.
“We have already launched in the US. The key focus is on ready-to-mix applications for nutrition and dietary supplements,” said CEO Thijs Bosch tells Green Queen.
“We see strong interest from customers interested in the combination of protein, fibre, and bioactives in one ingredient. Fermotein is a great building block for so-called ‘all-in-one nutrition’ shakes and products, which are nutrient-dense and GLP-1-compliant,” he adds. “We expect the first EU customers to launch during Q4 2026, again with a focus on active nutrition.”
Targeting the active nutrition and GLP-1 verticals
Formed as a demerger from industrial biotech company BioscienZ BV in 2020, The Protein Brewery converts low-nutrient crops into planet-friendly, high-nutrition products.
Its first innovation, Fermotein, is a whole-cell bioproduct derived from Rhizomucor pusillus, an extremophilic fungal strain that can withstand low pH levels and high temperatures. These microbes are fed on glucose in fermentation tanks, with the biomass being pasteurised, dried, and then milled into a powder.
The mycoprotein yields 26 times more protein than meat, five times more than soy, and four times more than peas. And when compared to beef, Fermotein uses just 1% of the land, consumes 5% of the water and releases 3% of the emissions.
It contains 50g of complete protein per 100g, with a PDCAAS score of 1, alongside 30g of fibre and just 6g of fat, making the ingredient suitable for maintaining muscle mass, complementing GLP-1 use, and supporting a healthy microbiome.
Moreover, Fermotein is packed with naturally occurring micronutrients and bioactives, including spermidine, a longevity-linked polyamine vital for cell growth and regeneration, immune regulation, and DNA stability. It’s an increasingly popular component for anti-ageing supplements, and human studies and mechanistic research have associated it with cellular maintenance pathways like autophagy.
Thanks to its neutral taste and odour, the mycoprotein can be easily incorporated into ready-to-mix powders, shakes, bars, baked goods, and dairy alternatives (which was the focus of a $2.7M investment from the EU LIFE programme last year). The startup has also been exploring its potential as a natural GLP-1 booster.
“Building a completely new ingredient category takes patience and investment in the right activities, at the right time,” Bosch said in a statement. “With this additional funding, we move from proving that whole-food mycelium is a desirable ingredient to delivering it at the scale that brands and manufacturers need.”
The Protein Brewery to advance longevity research for Fermotein
Fermotein is currently being produced at The Protein Brewery’s Breda facility, which expects to supply 600 tonnes of the ingredient in 2027, meeting confirmed customer commitments across Europe, Singapore, and the US, the three markets it’s already cleared to sell into.
In fact, the firm has already sold out its 2026 capacity to clients in the US, and will use the new funds to expand its manufacturing capacity beyond 2,000 tonnes by 2029.
“We are putting significant investments into expanding this capacity as we see very strong demand for our ingredient. We invest in extra fermentation capacity, de-bottlenecking our downstream processing, and hiring extra staff for our production plant,” explains Bosch.
Over the last 12 months, it has also built a body of scientific evidence demonstrating Fermotein’s health credentials, and a portion of the Series B extension will go towards advancing clinical and scientific research into the ingredient’s longevity-promoting benefits.
“Longevity is not about a single nutrient or intervention. It sits at the intersection of diet quality, physical activity, and lifestyle,” Bosch told Green Queen in January. “Our role as an ingredient company is to contribute to that system by offering a nutrient-dense food ingredient that supports everyday nutritional adequacy, particularly in mid- to later life when protein needs increase, and diet quality often declines.”
This month, the European Commission amended its implementing regulation to include Femrotein in the list of authorised novel foods, with The Protein Brewery eyeing the active nutrition (via protein powders and bars) and functional food and drink spaces.
“We are still working with several prospects in Singapore and believe this will remain an interesting market for our ingredient,” Bosch notes.
Ugur Yuksel, investment manager at the ABN AMRO Sustainable Impact Fund, noted: “The Protein Brewery has successfully translated strong scientific foundations into a robust industrial-scale production process and a growing commercial business, exactly the profile we look for in companies that can deliver measurable environmental impact at scale.”
