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Beans: Ines Sánchez-Castillo Velge shares how to get funded in 2025

Investment Climate Podcast: Fundraising Playbooks From Food Tech CEOs and VCs 

In this podcast series, Alex Shandrovsky interviews investors about benchmarks for funding Alt Proteins in 2025 and uncovers the investment playbooks of successful Climate Tech CEOs and Leading VCs.

Podcast Host Alex Shandrovksy is a strategic advisor to numerous global food tech accelerators and companies, including alternative proteins and cellular agriculture leaders. His focus is on investor relations and post-raise scale for agrifood tech companies. This podcast is syndicated through our media partners; Foodtech Weekly and Vegconomist.

Episode 19: Beans: Ines Sánchez-Castillo Velge shares how to get funded in 2025

In this episode, I speak with Ines, founder of Beans, a startup tackling food waste by buying unsold inventory from FMCG giants like Nestlé and Unilever and reselling it at deep discounts—helping consumers save up to 50% on groceries while turning waste into profit. We dive into how venture studios helped de-risk their journey as first-time founders, how Beans navigated cash flow challenges in a capital-intensive business, and what it took to raise €1.4M after rejections. Plus, Ines shares insights on scaling a marketplace, building consumer trust, and staying resilient as a founder. A must-listen for anyone interested in food tech, fundraising, and startup execution.

Key Facts Beans:

• Goal: To eliminate food waste by buying unsold inventory from major FMCG brands and reselling it at steep discounts—helping both companies and consumers save money.
• Recently raised €1.4M with Water Lemon VCE as lead investor.

Alex’s Top Findings:

1. Venture Studios Can De-Risk First-Time Founders. BEANS emerged from the Food Tech Founders venture studio, which provided funding, expertise, and operational support, making fundraising and execution easier despite the founders being first-timers. " We're incredibly grateful that we founded this with them because their experience made us not first time founders. My co-founder and I are first time founders, but the fact that we had them meant that we weren't regarded as first-time founders, and that in our execution was massive." Ines shared.
2. Startup Fundraising is a Numbers Game. Persistence is key in fundraising. It took 179 rejections before BEANS secured investment, proving that resilience and conviction are crucial for success. "We spoke to about 180 VCs until we got our first yes. It's extremely discouraging when you have 179  funds that tell you what you're building is not worthwhile or maybe they don't say it in those terms. So try keeping on and hustling to get that traction.”
3. Customer Trust is Built Through Transparency & Engagement. Direct communication, social proof (Trustpilot reviews), and a referral program helped overcome consumer skepticism about discounted groceries. " We wanted to be so extremely customer centric. For the first eight months, I had my personal cell phone on the website, so customers could call me directly." Ines revealed.